Gloucester beat Tigers in Slater Cup thriller

Gallagher Premiership

Gloucester 38 (17)

Tries: Williams, Carreras, Clement, Harris, Blake Cons: Carreras (5) Pens: Carreras

Leicester 31 (21)

Tries: Perese, Brown, Radwan, Wells Cons: Pollard (4) Pens: Pollard

Gloucester moved up to third in the Premiership table with victory over Leicester Tigers in a hectic contest at Kingsholm.

It was Leicester who struck first, Izaia Perese benefitting from a slip to touch down beyond the posts before Tomos Williams replied for Gloucester.

Leicester's Mike Brown and Gloucester's Santi Carreras exchanged further tries, before Tigers debutant Adam Radwan dotted down following an interception.

Shortly after the restart, Harry Wells drove over from short range to stretch Leicester's 21-17 half-time lead to 11 points but Jack Clement and centenarian Chris Harris replied to turn the match on its head.

Seb Blake's effort put the game beyond Leicester before Handre Pollard's penalty secured a losing bonus point for the away side.

With former Gloucester and Leicester lock Ed Slater, now living with motor neurone disease (MND), in attendance, it was the home team who claimed victory and raised the cup that bears his name.

With the potential for both teams to climb to second place in the table, it didn't take long for the first score of the day.

Following an unsuccessful drive from a five-metre lineout, Ben Youngs picked the perfect pass for Wallaby centre Perese, who went over untouched.

But the Cherry and Whites struck back quickly, Seb Atkinson making a half break between Tigers' defenders before feeding Max Llewellyn who put Williams through for the home side's first try of the game.

Following a bizarre incident in which Llewellyn was penalised for an incorrect restart, Leicester struck again. From the ensuing scrum, a simple back-line move resulted in Mike Brown charging over as the Gloucester defenders found themselves overwhelmed.

George Skivington's men thought they had levelled soon after. A fortuitous bounce from a grubber kick saw Christian Wade touch down in the corner, only for the try to be chalked off for offside in the build-up.

But Gloucester were not to be denied for long. Having worked their way into the Tigers' 22, Clement's drive was repelled before Carreras' acrobatic effort in the corner.

On the edge of half-time, the match swung again. Brown picked off Gareth Anscombe as Gloucester pressed. The former England fullback made it well into the opposing half, before offloading to Radwan to score with his first touch as a Tigers player.

Leicester carried that momentum into the second half, Wells forcing his way over from short range following a break down the wing from Ollie Hassell-Collins.

But Gloucester then found a second wind. Having driven up to the Leicester 22, Clement exploited a tiring Tigers defence to score before Harris, on his 100th appearance for the club, touched down to cap a frenzied period of play.

Things only got worse for Michael Cheika's men with Perese being yellow-carded for a dangerous tackle, before Blake emerged with the ball from the resultant lineout drive for Gloucester's fifth try.

Leicester were shell-shocked, but came away with two losing bonus point following Pollard's late penalty.

The result leaves both teams on 35 points, with Gloucester in third, ahead of their defeated opponents on points difference.

Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington to BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

"It's a good feeling [being third in the table] – the boys have earned that, they had to earn it the hard way today.

"I thought we were a little bit clunky in the first half, I felt we left a little bit out there. We were close to breaking Leicester a lot and just not connecting.

"But the boys then found their rhythm at the back end of the first half into the second half and I'm just proud of them - they were brave, it would have been so easy to go into their shells today and they just kept cracking away."

Leicester Tigers head coach Michael Cheika talking to BBC Radio Leicester:

"I thought we had a huge improvement off the back of last week, but obviously still disappointed not to get the win. I thought we deserved more than we got out of that game to be honest.

(On being asked what made the difference): "The penalty flow was pretty obvious, maybe someone said something the referee didn't like, but it went against us from there and it went against us hard.

"We needed to be a little bit better at the lineout and our kicking game needed to be a little bit sharper, to give us a bit of territory but we didn't get any territory because we were continually being penalised.

"It is what it is, we need to improve things in our game, so that we can get more than just the two points we got today."

Gloucester: Carreras; Wade, Harris, Atkinson, Llewellyn; Anscombe, Williams; Vivas, Blake, Gotovtsev, Thomas, Jordan, Clement, Ludlow, Ackermann.

Replacements: Singleton, Rapava-Ruskin, Knight, Clarke, Tuisue, Englefield, Atkinson, Hathaway.

Leicester: Brown; Radwan, Perese, Kata, Hassell-Collins; Pollard, Youngs; Smith, Montoya, Cole, Henderson, Wells, Liebenberg, Reffell, Cracknell.

Replacements: Clare, Cronin, Hurd, Joussain, Ilione, Whiteley, Woodward, Volavola.

Yellow card: Perese

Referee: Ben O'Keeffe