Aviva Premiership round-up: Gloucester's Robinson puts the boot into Wasps
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Your support makes all the difference.Two enormous penalty goals from Nicky Robinson gave Gloucester an important win yesterday, 22-20 at home to London Wasps. The sometime Wales fly-half, on as a replacement, succeeded from around 53 metres for the second time five minutes from the end of the match. The fly-half Dave Walder then missed a slightly shorter penalty for Wasps.
"Nicky was confident with his kicking and he had the range," said Gloucester's head coach, Bryan Redpath. "I am delighted for him."
Referring to the previous week's defeat at the Madejski Stadium, which had resulted in Robinson being dropped, Redpath said: "We conceded 19 penalties against London Irish and never got a chance to get in the game. But we had a bit more fire about us today. A lot of players performed well. The Gloucester fans are hugely passionate and it was key that we showed some passion."
Wasps took a losing bonus point and the rather hollow satisfaction of having scored two tries to one. Their No 8, Dan Ward-Smith, scored the first of the match from long range, thanks to some rather limp tackling; the Gloucester centre Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu answered that with a long-range try of his own, thanks to some rather limp tackling. The Wasps scrum-half Joe Simpson scored the final try of the match in the second half, from long range and thanks to... well, quite.
Tim Taylor, Gloucester's starting fly-half, kicked three penalties and converted Fuimaono-Sapolu's try before injuring his knee. Walder kicked two penalties and two conversions. The Wasps director of rugby, Tony Hanks, said: "We didn't manage the last couple of minutes well once we had gone into the lead. But you have got to make sure that you take something from your away games and we managed that today with the losing bonus point."
The team Neil Back graced as a player, Leicester Tigers, answered the current Leeds Carnegie coach's slightly unusual pre-match words about his players "enjoying" their trip to Welford Road by running up a try-scoring bonus point before half-time and scoring eight tries in all. The match finished 48-6 to Leicester, leaving Leeds, presumably, facing some not-very-enjoyable beastings from Back in training.
Scott Hamilton, Thomas Waldrom, Tom Croft, Matt Smith, George Skivington, Alesana Tuilagi (twice) and Alesana's brother, Manu, scored tries for Leicester and Billy Twelvetrees kicked four conversions. Ceiron Thomas kicked two penalties for Leeds, who are winless and bottom of the Premiership.
In the evening kick-offs in the Magners League, the Ospreys collected a bonus point in beating Aironi 38-6 in Swansea and Ulster drew 15-15 with Connacht in Galway.
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