Blues go down fighting at Kingsholm
Gloucester 20 Cardiff Blues 8
Saturday 18 August 3.30pm Kingsholm
Kick off was delayed by thirty minutes due to a crash on the M5 resulting in the Blues side arriving late.
The Blues preparations were also hampered with Lloyd Williams, Tom James and Lou Reed pulling out late with illness and injury. They also had to make and early change with Owen Williams going off, with what looked like a dead leg, following a collision with Mike Tindall in the centre just minutes intot he game. Gavin Evans came on as replacement.
Twelvetrees converted a penalty to give Gloucester an early lead and added to his tally when he danced through some slack tackling in the twenty-two to score, before converting his effort.
The Blues best effort of the half came when Ceri Sweeney broke from just outside his twenty-two and passed to speedster Tom Williams. The youngster did well to take the ball all the way to the Gloucester Twenty two but his inside pass was gathered by Tindall who recovered.
Half time Gloucester 10 Cardiff Blues 0
As is the last two warm up fixtures the Blues made a number of changes at half time with only five of the starting line-up remaining on the pitch.
The Blues had a brighter start to the second half and Filise carried well in to the Gloucester twenty-two, where they won a penalty that Davies converted. However, Twelvetrees soon got one back.
The Blues struck back with a well taken try. Tom Davies did superbly to gather a stray ball from the line-out, before Rory Watts-Jones charged and passed to Andi Kyriacou, who did well to pass on to Harry Robinson to score in the corner. Davies was just wide with the touchline conversion.
Gloucester’s power up front was always going to cause the Blues problems. Following two efforts coming close from a scrum and a charge by the forwards, the referee eventually awarded a penalty try that Twelvetrees converted to bring the score to 20-8 and secure the win for the home side.
Cardiff Blues ?First Half?15. Dan Fish 14. Harry Robinson 13. Owen Williams 12. Rhys Patchell (V.Captain) 11. Tom Williams 10. Ceri Sweeney 9. Lewis Jones
1. Nathan Trevett 2. Rhys Williams 3. Scott Andrews 4. Robin Copeland 5. James Down 6. Macauley Cook (Captain) 7. Josh Navidi 8. Luke Hamilton
Second Half? 15. Tom Williams 14. Harry Robinson 13. Gavin Evans (Captain) 12. Cory Allen 11. Owen Williams 10. Gareth Davies 9. Rob Lewis
1. Tom Davies 2. Andi Kyriacou 3. Taufa'ao Filise 4. Robin Copeland 5. James Down 6. Rory Watts-Jones 7. Thomas Young 8. Andries Pretorius (V.Captain)
Gloucester Rugby: 15 Martyn Thomas 14 Charlie Sharples 13 Henry Trinder 12 Mike Tindall 11 Ian Clark 10 Billy Twelvetrees 9 Dan Robson
1 Nick Wood 2 Tommaso D'Apice 3 Rupert Harden 4 Will James 5 Alex Brown (captain) 6 Matt Cox 7 Akapusi Qera 8 Ben Morgan
Replacements: 16 Koree Britton 17 Dan Murphy 18 Shaun Knight 19 Tom Savage 20 Peter Buxton 21 Dave Lewis 22 Tim Taylor 23 Rob Cook 24 Darren Dawidiuk 26 Andy Hazell 27 Sione Kalamafoni 28 Tim Molenaar 29 Drew Locke
Cardiff Blues
Tries Robinson x 1
Con
Pen Davies x 1
D/G
Gloucester
Tries Twelvetrees x 1 Penalty Try x 1
Con Twelvetrees x 2
Pen Twelvetrees x 2
D/G