Gloucester edge out Quins

Gloucester knocked Harlequins off the top of the Guinness Premiership table with a hard-fought 24-20 win at Kingsholm.

Scores from Olly Morgan and Alasdair Strokosch helped the Cherry and Whites come out on top, while Olly Barkley landed a late penalty on his debut.

By then Willie Walker had already landed a conversion, two penalties and a drop goal to help the hosts battle back from 13-5 down at the interval.

Despite scoring three tries to their opponents' two, Quins fell short mainly due to a poor kicking display from the returning Chris Malone.

Costly misses

The fly-half, picked in place of Waisea Luveniyali after missing the opening two games through injury, missed two penalties and two conversions in the opening half.

Despite their kicker struggling Quins still led by eight points at half time, after crossing twice in the space of two first-half minutes.

Winger David Strettle's weaving run set up the opener for full-back Mike Brown before Danny Care collected his own kick for a quick-fire second.

However, Malone was unable to land either of the conversion attempts having already missed two very early penalties that would've broken the deadlock.

Eventually the number 10 found his range to slot over three points before the break, Gloucester's only reply in the opening 40 minutes coming when a quick tap-penalty led to Morgan going over in the corner.

Like his fellow fly-half Walker missed the extras, but was on target with a penalty three minutes into the second half.

Sin-binning

His 35-metre drop goal reduced the deficit even further before Quins were crucially reduced to 14 men when their skipper Will Skinner was sin-binned.

Walker kicked the resulting penalty to put Gloucester in front for the first time in the game and, still with a man advantage, they moved further clear when Strokosch dashed 40 metres for the line.

With the conversion also going over Dean Ryan's side were in command, only for Malone to make it a tense finish by cutting inside to get a try shortly after the hour mark.

In the end that was as close as Quins got, though, new boy Barkley marking his first appearance for his new employers due to a broken wrist suffered on England's tour to New Zealand, with a timely three points that sealed the result.