Gallagher Premiership: Tom Willis helps Saracens return to winning ways against Gloucester

Tom Willis scored two tries for Saracens at Kingsholm

Saracens No 8 Tom Willis scored two tries in a 24-3 victory over Gloucester to ensure the reigning champions did not begin their Gallagher Premiership title defence with a hat-trick of defeats.

After losses to Exeter and Bath, Saracens were unfancied to come away from Kingsholm with a win but they took advantage of Gloucester's first-half profligacy to ultimately run out comfortable winners.

Alex Lewington was also on the try-scoring sheet for Saracens, with Alex Lozowski converting all three and adding a penalty.

A kick from George Barton was Gloucester's sole response.

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said: "It was a massively pleasing effort as we played with a lot of energy and our defensive performance was of a much higher level than we've displayed recently.

"Our win came as a result of our off-the-ball efforts and the team was unrecognisable from the one that turned out at Sandy Park.

"To keep a very good Gloucester team to just three points on their home ground takes some doing but we certainly scrapped for everything."

Gloucester captain Lewis Ludlow accepted his side needed to be more clinical as they blew a number of opportunities in the first 20 minutes before gifting Saracens two tries through careless errors.

He said: "The referee said to me at the end of the match that it was a funny old game as we seemed to have all the momentum but it was all them on the scoreboard.

"We just couldn't get over the line, which was down to their defence and our lack of accuracy.

"Our scrums went really well but we need to be more accurate with our lineout drills as there seemed to be something off at almost every one.

"Obviously the boys are deflated as we dominated large parts of the game but they had three chances and took all of them."

Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington added: " It's a really disappointing evening after the way we've been playing recently.

"For the first 25 minutes, I was pretty happy as we executed our game plan well but we didn't take our opportunities.

"Then they take advantage of a couple of bobbled balls to score two tries and obviously there is a huge momentum shift.

"I don't think we functioned well as a unit as we were disjointed at both the lineout and maul and we have had so much trouble with any opposition lineout for over three years."