Leicester avoided the indignity of losing their three opening matches in the Premiership for the first time, but a contest between two heavyweights of the English game, who are scrambling to retrieve their reputations, showed how far back they have fallen. A match that was light, frothy and helter-skelter was decided in the opening quarter, when Leicester, armed with plentiful penalties, scored their three tries.
The first summed up why Gloucester are the Premiership’s model of inconsistency. Switching off when Ben Youngs has the ball in his hands 10 metres from the line, after his side have been awarded a penalty, is not in any instruction manual. As the England scrum-half assessed his options seven minutes in, the Gloucester flanker Lewis Ludlow – anticipating a kick at goal and a banker three points – was stuffing his gumshield into a sock as he helplessly watched a whirl of green shoot past him.
Gloucester were similarly distracted for Youngs’ second on 14 minutes, which equalled the scrum-half’s league tally of tries for last season.
Leicester’s response to the plentiful penalties they were awarded was either to take them quickly or opt for an attacking lineout.
The set piece, which was led by two novice second rows who had to contend with the former Tigers’ captain Ed Slater – who joined the Cherry and Whites after a pre-season with Leicester – malfunctioned for most of the afternoon, but on this occasion the ball was smuggled to Luke Hamilton, who was held up on the line before Youngs spotted a gap on the blindside.
Leicester’s third try followed the best move of the match: their full-back Telusa Veainu, who largely revelled in the anarchic nature of a game without shape, committed Ollie Thorley into leaving the line early before timing his pass to Nick Malouf to finish off a counterattack – but, after that, it was a case of what should have been, with both sides struggling to finish what they had started.
The difference between the teams was the urgency Leicester showed at the start, still smarting after their tame capitulation at arch-rivals Northampton the week before. They hit rucks hard, led by the England prop Ellis Genge, whose industry was supplemented by a destructiveness up front, and they rushed up in defence to hurry a back division that had been hit by the late withdrawal of the fly-half Billy Burns, with a knee injury.
If the late reshuffle offered an explanation for Gloucester’s long catalogue of errors, it was far from total. Since this stage of the Premiership last season, they have won only one league match on the road, at relegated Bristol last March.
They too often resembled a team who have met up for the first time in the car park an hour before kick-off, high on intent but low on understanding. They conceded 11 penalties in the opening half while winning one, and though they disputed some decisions and bemoaned what they saw as conniving by Leicester, their play was more individual than collective, lacking in synchronisation and cohesion.
They rallied after trailing 21-0 at the interval, Josh Hohneck running through Veainu after Willi Heinz had manoeuvred the prop into space before Billy Twelvetrees kicked a penalty, but a side who had lost eight of their nine previous Premiership encounters with Leicester never threatened to win here in the tournament for the first time since 2007.
The penalties may have been more evenly distributed in the second half, but Leicester continued to dominate in terms of position, undermined by the five attacking lineouts they lost. Gloucester had to attack from deep, but were undone by a combination of over-ambition and sloppiness, and they lacked a focal point.
The Gloucester coach, Johan Ackermann, pointed out that – as he had not arrived at the club from South Africa until the final week of August – he was having to introduce systems during the season, rather than before it. Even so, he would expect his charges to show more gumption and wit than they served up here: if he did not know the size of the task he faces before, he does now.
“I haven’t got a magic wand,” he said. “It took me four years with the Lions [in South Africa]. I don’t know if it is going take four here. It might take eight, or it might take one. We have got to keep pushing.”
It was Leicester who were pushing in the final 20 minutes. They failed to secure try bonus points, confirming victory with a George Ford penalty after Thorley had escaped a yellow card for a deliberate knock-on that thwarted a potential second try for Malouf.
The final whistle summoned relief rather than rapture, victory only highlighting what still needs to be done in the shadows cast by the glories of times past.
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