Gloucester end long wait for silverware

GLOUCESTER won their first Premiership Cup title - and first trophy in nine years after scoring 17 points while Tigers had hooker Finn Theobald-Thomas and full-back Mike Brown in the sin-bin.

- ROGER PANTING

After a dour first 39 minutes, Glouceter trailed 6-0 but two yellow cards in seven minutes saw Leicester crumble as the hosts upped their game to take a decisive advantage.

Leicester director of rugby Dan McKellar said: "We had 15 minutes of chaos during which we lost all momentum. There were too many penalties and too many turnovers which came after a decent defensive effort in the first half.

"We still wanted more possession in that period and we showed what we could do in the last 10 minutes but by then the game had gone."

Premiership Rugby had billed this competition as a development one but if at the outset, they expected to end up a free-flowing final from promising youngsters then they were misguided.

A near sell-out Kingsholm crowd were instead treated to a war of attrition played out by two battle-hardened rivals, with very limited game-plans.

Leicester merely looked to rely on a huge defensive effort with more accurate goal-kicking from Handre Pollard to see them to victory.