Gloucester beat Bordeaux-Begles 25-13 in Amlin Challenge Cup

The Aviva Premiership outfit built on last week's hard-fought success away at Mont de Marsan with a bonus-point victory on home soil as they ran in four first-half tries.

They hit the front after just six minutes when their expansive, attacking approach paid dividends as lock Will James popped up out wide on the left to take an Akapusi Qera pass and score in the corner.

Billy Twelvetrees scored his side's second try five minutes later, the fly-half showing a good turn of speed as he raced on to Jimmy Cowan's clever kick upfield to collect and touch down in the right corner - although he failed to add either conversion.

Bordeaux could count themselves unfortunate when Cowan's blatant foul on Thierry Brana went unpunished as the winger looked set to score, but the French side reduced the deficit to just four points as the impressive Nicolas Sanchez landed a couple penalties.

But the home side reasserted their authority on 25 minutes following a flowing move from their three-quarter line which culminated in James Simpson-Daniel expertly timing his pass to put fellow winger Charlie Sharples in at the corner.

Again Twelvetrees missed the conversion, but he opened his kicking account on 34 minutes with a long-range penalty after Bordeaux had been penalised for using hands at the ruck.

From the restart Gloucester then added a quite superb fourth try, Ben Morgan rampaging through the visiting defence before offloading, the ball again finding its way into the arms of Sharples out on the right who finished clinically allowing Twelvetrees to slot his first conversion.

The second half was a much more scrappy, physical affair as Bordeaux dug in and prevented the hosts from replicating the kind of free-flowing rugby of the opening period.

Gloucester's cause wasn't helped by the fact that James was sin-binned on 51 minutes for striking and they would have been concerned to see Tindall, Tim Taylor and Jim Hamilton all limp off through injury, while Bordeaux had the final say when flanker Gauthier Gibouin went over under the posts in injury-time for a converted try.