Gloucester cruise to victory

Gloucester secured a convincing 30-16 bonus-point victory against Leeds to move to the top of Pool Three in the LV= Cup.

Leeds' only domestic win of the season came against Gloucester on New Year's Day, but there was to be no chance of a repeat of that result at Headingley on Sunday.

Tries from Lesley Vainikolo and Tom Voyce helped put the visitors into a 15-9 lead before Nick Wood and Tim Molenaar also crossed to give the west-country side the extra point.

Scott Mathie scored a fine try for the home side but it was not enough to threaten Gloucester, who can secure a place in the semi-finals with a win over London Irish next weekend.

Despite making a host of changes, the Cherry and Whites got off to a flying start as Leeds conceded a scrum after failing to gather the kick-off.

The ball was then moved out wide by fly-half Freddie Burns and Vainikolo broke free of some weak tackles to touch down inside the two-minute mark.

Leeds responded well and had the better of the play for the first 20 minutes, with Ceiron Thomas putting them on the board with an 18th minute penalty.

Penalties

Gloucester regained their five-point lead shortly afterwards through a Burns penalty but Thomas cancelled that out with three points of his own just before the half-hour mark.

The visitors then created a second try in the 33rd minute as Burns offloaded to flanker Alasdair Strokosch and Voyce then raced through a sleeping defence to score. Burns added the extras.

Thomas slotted a third penalty between the posts to make it 15-9 at the half-time interval after a cynical piece of defending by Jim Hamilton.

After the break, a powerful scrum from Gloucester led to prop Mike MacDonald conceding a penalty that Burns duly scored with 25 minutes left.

Leeds then hit back with some pressure of their own but MacDonald was unable to find Thomas with the final ball after some good work from back-row Rhys Oakley.

The try finally came when Lachlan Mackay broke from deep before finding Mike Stephenson, who helped move the ball to Mathie and the replacement scrum-half scored under the posts.

Vainikolo was then helped off with an arm injury as Gloucester prepared for a tense finish but the nerves were calmed when replacement prop Wood powered over from a line-out.

Centre Molenaar then capitalised on some poor tackling for the fourth try as Leeds were dumped out of the competition.