Newcastle 7-29 Gloucester: Visitors ease to away win
By PA
Last Updated: 24/11/17 11:18pm
Newcastle crashed to a 29-7 home defeat to Gloucester in the Aviva Premiership.
The Falcons have now lost their last four matches after showing much early season promise and they had no answer to the Cherry and Whites' first-half performance, which saw the visitors lead 19-7 at the break.
Gloucester's impressive defence, even when they were down to 14 men with Billy Twelvetrees in the sin-bin in the second half, paved the way for a comfortable bonus-point win courtesy of Gareth Denman's 68th minute try.
Henry Purdy set up Andy Symons' opening 17th minute try when he scythed through. He was denied the score by a brilliant Sinoti Sinoti tap-tackle, but quickly recycled and Symons flew over.
Twelvetrees converted to make it 7-0.
Gloucester then executed a quick line-out throw to catch Newcastle napping and lock Jeremy Thrush barrelled his way over to score with Twelvetrees converting to make it 14-0 after 24 minutes.
Newcastle had their chances with successive scrums on the Gloucester line, however, the Cherry and Whites' defence held and when Twelvetrees turned the ball over with a big hit, Gloucester cleared downfield.
It proved costly with Purdy scoring a brilliant opportunist try when he chipped over the Falcons' defence and won the race to the touchdown for a 35th-minute try.
That score made it 19-0 to the visitors.
Right on half-time, Newcastle flanker Mark Wilson was driven over for a try converted by Joel Hodgson - but the hosts continued to struggle despite the loss of Twelvetrees to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on after the resumption.
Their task became almost impossible when Denman was driven over in the corner for the bonus-point try in the 68th minute and Twelvetrees had by then returned to convert and make the score 29-7.
