Gloucester
Glaws win, but Blues still pool favourites
Big Les - 2 tries
By Cherry Picker
December 14 2008
Gloucester did what was expected of them with a bonus point win over Calvisano, but Biarritz didn’t play their part in the dream scenario by beating Cardiff Blues and the Welsh side remain favourites to top their Heineken Cup pool. Glaws beat Calvisano 48-5, but Cardiff won 10-6 in France and are four points clear of Glaws at the top of the table.
Glaws took time to get into gear, but were streets ahead in the second half and fully deserved the winning margin.
If they can win that, they’ll hopefully be level, than it’s all down to the final pool games the following weekend – Glaws at Biarritz and Blues against Calvisano.
Fancy a bet? Neither do I.
| P | W | D | L | F | A | Bp | Pts | |
| Blues | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 124 | 67 | 2 | 18 |
| Glaws | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 134 | 69 | 2 | 14 |
| Biarritz | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 74 | 63 | 3 | 7 |
| Calvisano | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 52 | 185 | 0 | 0 |
Glaws coach Dean Ryan told the BBC: "Our decision making was a step up from last week. We played significantly better and so did Calvisano.
"When we lost at Cardiff we had to make sure that we kept winning with bonus points.
"We've done that but Cardiff winning in Biarritz makes it harder for us.
"We wanted there to be something in the game when Cardiff come to us and that's what will happen but really we have to win both our two remaining games to stand a chance of qualifying."
You also have to hope you get bonus points in both, Dean, and that won't be easy in either.
The Glaws points came from tries by Mark Foster and Luke Narraway in the first half (2-05), with Lesley Vainikolo and Matthew Watkins getting two each later, Ryan lamb converting all six and kicking two penalties.
Greg Somerville got on for his debut as a second-half replacement, and will hopefully have been told there will be more difficult games than this one was.
The crowd of 13,970 may not have been capacity, but it wasn't bad considering the opposition and the fact that Christmas is less than two weeks away.
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This is what European rugby is all about - two teams who can play some decent rugby needing to win to secure their final positions in the pool for that all important home quarter final place.
Can anyone tell me how far kingsholm is from the train station?
ta
Also...where do the away fans usually sit and stand?
Haven't decided whether to get a seat or terrace ticket yet
Edit: Thats if the away allocations are usually the same
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008:12:17:10:13:04 by Dead_Passive.
Thanks for the help and see you there
Quote:cheerycherry
The heartening thing is you can see Glaws are slowly but surely coming into form, somebody soon is going to get a stuffing once it all clicks together.
That's why it's much better not to make these sort of predictions to avoid having too much egg on one's face when actual results go against you ( referring to your result against London Irish yesterday). I'm not gloating - just have a look where the Blues are in the Magners.
Looking forward to the game - got myself a pair of tickets for the 'Shed' and hope to witness a cracker of a game. we both need a result.
