Vickery hails beginning of new era for Gloucester dominance

Phil Vickery was in one of his vernacularly-charged moods. The edited version of his after-match address – "This is our cup, and we're putting it in our cabinet, in our clubhouse" – is nowhere near as entertaining as the original, which featured a number of additional words, all of them beginning with the letter "f". But dear old Vicks, who once earned a living on his father's farm performing unimaginably gruesome tasks with bulls, is about to embark on his first tour as England's captain, and would not want to be quoted verbatim for fear of frightening the horses. Or in his case, the cattle.

There was no disguising his message, though. Vickery believes this Gloucester vintage to be the most potent in a generation – like fortified wine, it packs one hell of a punch – and that this is just the beginning. The Cherry and Whites had waited the best part of a quarter of a century to win a title outright, and if the Zurich Championship title they seized at Twickenham on Saturday was the least coveted of the five currently available to English clubs, the Lions tight-head prop could not conceivably have cared less.

"I have spent the last seven years at Gloucester, and in that time I have been hammered by Bath on countless occasions, shipped 70 points to Harlequins and lost semi-finals for a pastime," Vickery pronounced in tones as agricultural as his old job. "Some people have supported the idea of this tournament, others have ripped into it. But from our point of view, this was a chance to win a major trophy – something we haven't managed since 1978. Happy? Of course I'm bloody happy."

Gloucester will be happier still if they compound Bristol's frustration by pinching their head coach, Dean Ryan. The former England No 8, every bit as abrasive now as he was during his playing days with Wasps and Newcastle, is becoming increasingly irritated by suggestions that he is about to jump ship and join his old friend and colleague, Nigel Melville, at Kingsholm, but not even Ryan can frighten a rumour into submission. The story refuses to go away, and the fact that Melville avoided all discussion of the subject on Saturday night when he might just as easily have rubbished the whole idea appeared to tell a tale.

Add to this the uncertainty surrounding Jack Rowell's future at Bristol – senior figures at the club insist the chief executive is contemplating a sentimental return to Bath, whatever he may say to the contrary – and you are looking at a club on the brink of a fresh outbreak of instability, having barely recovered from the last one. It may be that the respected Peter Thorburn, the former All Black selector who has been assisting Ryan these last three months or so, is prepared to accept more responsibility, and that Jason Little, their resident Wallaby, will try his luck as a player-coach. But as England's fourth seeds in next season's Heineken Cup, they cannot afford too many distractions on the management front.

If there is an obvious ironic dimension to Ryan's recent talk of the importance of continuity at Bristol, it is at least possible to understand his thinking. Rather like Melville, he presides over a team with genuine potential. Alex Brown, Andrew Sheridan and Michael Lipman are outstanding young forwards, Phil Christophers and Lee Best exciting outside backs with similarly bright futures ahead of them. With the two Pumas, Agustin Pichot and the superb Felipe Contepomi, there to guide them through the minefield, a top-five finish in next season's Premiership is well within compass.

Indeed, they might easily have denied Gloucester on this occasion. The Bristol forwards took a rare old pounding in the opening period, when Patrice Collazo and Jake Boer led the Cherry and White hard-heads on their usual seek-and-destroy mission, and were 16-6 adrift at the interval, thanks to Boer's punishing try in the left corner – a hard-earned triumph of offensive muscle over defensive sinew – and the astonishing marksmanship of Ludovic Mercier, who introduced himself to Twickenham with a first-minute penalty from his own half. Yet they refused to allow the favourites any real breathing space, and were back in it within 90 seconds of the restart.

Pichot was both instigator and finisher, catching Gloucester on the hop with a tapped penalty following Boer's late hit on Contepomi. Mercier, slotting penalties from every angle known to geometry, prevented Bristol from taking the lead, but when the world's only Zimbabwean-Scottish prop forward, Paul Johnstone, reduced an over-matched Tom Beim to his component parts before claiming a trademark try with eight minutes left on the clock, the outcome was suddenly in serious doubt.

Enter Mercier, stage left, right and centre. He cut Bristol to the quick with a 75th-minute penalty after Garath Archer, incendiary and indisciplined in equal measure, barged Junior Paramore off the ball, before wiping out Contepomi's three-point reply with another beautifully judged kick in injury time. Even then, Contepomi might have levelled it with a clean break in midfield, but the Argentinian accepted afterwards that the rather fussy referee, Roy Maybank, had correctly called Julian White for an obstruction. Trust a prop to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Very nearly 30,000 spectators turned up for a game that was more fun than it should have been, given the time of year and the rampant fatigue in both camps. But if the fixture planners imagine for a second that events on Saturday justified a campaign stretching beyond the first two cricket Tests of the summer, they can imagine again. Phil Vickery loves the Zurich Championship more than anyone right now, but if you ask him tomorrow whether it should be played again next year, he might give you a two-word reply, beginning with his favourite letter.

Bristol: Tries Pichot, Johnstone; Conversions Contepomi 2; Penalties Contepomi 3. Gloucester: Try Boer; Conversion Mercier; Penalties Mercier 7.

Bristol: L Best; P Christophers, D Rees, J Little (capt), J Williams (S Drahm, 70); F Contepomi, A Pichot; D Crompton (P Johnstone, 64), N McCarthy, J White, G Archer, A Brown, C Short (R Beattie, h-t), M Lipman, B Sturnham (A Sheridan, 50).

Gloucester: H Paul; D O'Leary, T Fanolua (C Catling, 78), R Todd, T Beim; L Mercier, A Gomarsall; P Collazo (T Woodman, 60), O Azam (C Fortey, 74), P Vickery (capt), R Fidler, E Pearce (C Gillies, 64), J Boer, J Forrester (K Sewabu, 74), J Paramore.

Referee: R Maybank (London).