Women’s side restore some pride by extending victory run to 14
L’borough 26-61
Gloucester-hartpury remain unbeaten, the defending Premiership Women’s Rugby champions racking up their 14th straight win and scoring nine tries against Loughborough Lightning.
There is a real chance Gloucester could finish the regular season unbeaten, with attention already drifting towards their trip to face second-placed Saracens at the end of the month, with the gap between the top two now 14 points.
Once again they were marshalled brilliantly by Natasha Hunt, with the midfield pairing of Tatyana Heard and Wales captain Hannah Jones excelling behind a pack featuring England internationals Maud Muir, Zoe Aldcroft and player of the match Alex Matthews.
Ominously for the rest of the league, Matthews told TNT Sports afterwards: “We have a lot to work on. Our defence getting off the line and especially our line-outs, that’s not where our standards are. We just want to keep pushing.”
A typically powerful run from Heard gave the visitors the perfect start after four minutes, hitting a flat line and breaking out of tackles from Carmella Morrall and Helen Nelson to score. Loughborough’s response was rapid, Emily Scarratt hitting a quality line before just being stopped short. Laura Keates,
who recently made her first appearance in two years, followed up and was a popular scorer.
Gloucester-hartpury’s scrum was devastating, with Muir’s power at tighthead setting the table for
Matthews to pick up off the base and score. But Loughborough were still in the fight, Sweden’s Maja Mueller finishing off a well-worked maul.
Matthews powered over for a second followed by Hunt’s quick thinking near the line meant Gloucester-hartpury had the bonus point after 28 minutes. Loughborough’s focus turned to stopping Matthews, with the No 8 attracting enough attention to free up Heard for another score off a set-piece. The only negative for the visitors was a serious-looking injury to hooker Kelsey Jones, who was taken off on a stretcher with Gloucester leading 35-12 at half-time.
After the break, replacement hooker Neve Jones finished off a maul, but Gloucester were still stretched defensively, with Mia
Venner’s cover tackle denying Bo Westcombe-evans a try in the corner after Scarratt’s cross-field kick. And Loughborough’s maul continued to work well, with Mueller scoring a second try.
But Gloucester exhausted their opponents, opening holes in a scrambling defence as Spanish replacement prop Laura Delgado broke clear to score from 20 metres out. Even the excellent tackles, such as Scarratt’s to stop a long-range break from Phillipa Hendy created by Heard and Hannah Jones, proved to be in vain, with second row Steph Else the next to score.
Cath O’donnell’s try was a fair reward for a spell of decent Loughborough pressure, but a second maul try for Neve Jones confirmed Gloucester’s dominance.