Gloucester hold on to beat Edinburgh despite Billy Meakes’ mad moment
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Version 0 of 1. Gloucester like to put their supporters through it. They were meandering to a comfortable victory over opponents who appeared to be overcome by the occasion, a rare example of the English enjoying being in Europe, when the centre Billy Meakes was sent off for a high tackle on his opposite number Sam Beard 17 minutes from time and Edinburgh scored a try within two minutes of his dismissal. The referee, Jérôme Garcès, sent off Stuart Hogg and Jared Payne in high-profile matches for dangerous tackles last season, but Meakes was shown the red card after the television match official, Eric Gauzins, reviewed a challenge that appeared to be more mistimed than malicious, although Beard had to leave the field for five minutes for a head injury assessment. Gloucester were 19-6 ahead and stuck in cruise control. With Ross Moriarty in the sin-bin for kneeing Fraser McKenzie in the back after a scrum collapsed, an act that was more gratuitous than Meakes’ which will attract the attention of the citing commissioner, they had 13 men when Edinburgh used their numerical advantage to put together their first sustained attack of the match. Ross Ford’s try put them within a converted score of winning with 15 minutes to go, but Edinburgh had spent most of the first hour of a final that for the most part was underwhelming making basic errors. The fly-half Phil Burleigh put two restarts directly into touch, passes were spilled, tackles were missed and turnovers were conceded. Gloucester should have been out of sight at half-time, but after a season as fickle as Edinburgh’s they also struggled to reach the door when opportunity knocked. They scored a gem of a try on 11 minutes from a lineout on halfway, James Hook using Billy Twelvetrees as a decoy before slipping an inside pass to Jonny May who drew the last defender before freeing Twelvetrees, and they were denied two others by ankle-tap tackles by the No8 Cornell du Preez. The first was on Charlie Sharples who had run from his own 22 and had only Burleigh in front of him having crossed halfway when Du Preez, at full stretch, just made contact with his right ankle. The other was on May who had weaved his way across field, straightened up and found top gear down the left wing when he was brought down five metres short. Gloucester were at their most threatening attack from deep, especially in the first half when Edinburgh left gaps in their defence, but they were only able to supplement the try with penalties from Greig Laidlaw, the Scotland captain who moved to Kingsholm from Edinburgh last summer. They led 13-6 at half-time and extended their lead to 13 points in the third quarter before Moriarty saw yellow to start a momentum swing that Meakes’s dismissal carried on . Edinburgh’s first-half points had come from the boot of Sam Hidalgo-Clyne and their numerous mistakes meant they could not sustain pressure. Even with a numerical advantage, their threat was fleeting and Gloucester held out in the last 10 minutes with considerably more comfort than they would have envisaged when Meakes was walking off. Their reward was not just a trophy, their first since 2011 when they won the LV Cup, but a place in the play-offs for next season’s Champions Cup. They will meet the team who finishes seventh in the Pro12, which presently is Edinburgh, with the toss of a coin deciding home advantage. The winner will meet the club that finishes seventh in the Top 14. “We do not like to make it easy for ourselves, but what we have shown this season is strength and character that has helped us at the end of matches,” said David Humphreys, Gloucester’s director of rugby. “We have a number of top international players and their decision-making helped us at the end. We had to dig deep after going down to 14 men. I have not seen Billy’s tackle in enough detail to say if the card should have been red or yellow, but the way we adapted to his loss showed how much we have evolved this season.” Edinburgh Tonks (Brown, h-t); Fife, Beard, Strauss, Visser; Burleigh, Hidalgo-Clyne; Dickinson, Ford, Nel, Bresler (McKenzie, 50), Toolis, Coman (capt; Watson, 58), Grant (McInally, 58), Du Preez. Try Ford. Con Hidalgo-Clyne. Pens Hidalgo-Clyne 2. Sin-bin Bresler 25. Gloucester Sharples; May, Meakes, Twelvetrees (capt), Purdy; Hook, Laidlaw; Wood (Thomas, 47), Hibbard (Dawidiuk, 73), Afoa, Savage, Palmer (Galarza h-t), Moriarty, Kvesic, Evans. Try Twelvetrees. Con Laidlaw. Pens Laidlaw 4 Sin-bin Moriarty 56. Sent off Meakes 63. Referee J Garcès (Fr). Attendance 14,316. |