GLOUCESTER'S hugely impressive 23-8 victory over Biarritz Olympique in the Heineken Cup was the perfect antidote to the recent weather and the team’s recent form.

This was a highly skilled encounter that kept spectators in thrall for the full 80 minutes, even though conditions underfoot must have been treacherous.

Gloucester came out of their starting blocks with real intent and the visitors must have wondered if this was the same outfit that had been thumped in the first leg. The home team dominated the possession throughout the game and actually looked comfortable with the offload and the blind side attack option.

There were many fine breaks from the whole side, but none were better than the skills shown by Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, who was awarded the man of the match by a reporters’ vote. He has pace, fast feet and can pass to places he doesn’t even seem to be looking at. However, his finest moment was when he picked up a Biarritz attacker and took him back at least 15 yards. In these days of all-powerful players, you rarely see such indignity heaped on a ball carrier, but this was carried out by a centre!

The roars of ‘Gloucester, Gloucester’ were passionate, as ever, but also relieved. The team has been through a sticky patch recently, but all was forgiven and applauded on a day of exciting, dynamic and effective rugby.

The buzz from the crowd was a chicken and egg one: did the team feed off the buzz or did the buzz come from a wonderful display? We will never know, but sadly there were only 10,103 spectators and there was space for many more. With more performances like this, there could be ticket touts back in Worcester Street.

Biarritz were worked over in the scrum and they could never get any go-forward from that phase. Imanol Harinordoquy, a world-class number 8 was largely anonymous and showed what he can do only with a consolation try late in the match. That Gloucester had kept him quiet for so long was testament to their effort, and the visitors’ failed conversion from just about straight in front of the posts just about summed up how they felt and the extent of their drubbing.

Hopefully this performance can lead to better things. There was a real urgency and snap to how we used possession, even though Biarritz looked far more comfortable with the offload in the early stages. They also attacked nearer the gain line than Gloucester, but the home-side’s defence was solid and confident all through.

There was something of Bryan Redpath in this victory and he can take heart from the fact that the side has under-performed in all competitions. His transition will not happen overnight and the players have to buy into a different mind-set on how to play. There will be sterner tests domestically, but a marker has been laid down on what is possible.

The main area that probably needs attention is the depth of the back line and forward runners from any type of possession. We still look a bit too deep, which can make it party-time for an aggressive defence. If you are tackled and haven’t got as far as where the possession started, your forwards are going to be forever running backwards before they can go forwards. This, however, can be assessed and improved from the luxury of a good win when criticisms are taken on board by the players as constructive rather than a means of getting at them.

Referee George Clancy and his touch judges were very efficient, but what has happened to forward passes? The three of them seemed not to want to spot them, yet they had the impartial advice from the Shed on numerous occasions and chose not to listen. And was I alone in bemoaning the lazy, offside and cynical Biarritz defenders who should have had a yellow card and possibly a penalty try against them when Sapolu had (again) opened them up in the 50th minute?

Perhaps Biarritz thought they just had to turn up to get their ‘automatic’ qualification in the competition. Well, sport isn’t like that and they were handed out a passionate Gloucester performance that made a mockery of recent efforts and they will hear the town’s cheers and chants for many a long day (or nightmare?) back in their beautiful Atlantic home town. French teams have always been accused of being able to play only when they can hear their own church bells; they certainly did not hear them at Kingsholm on Saturday.

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