The Football

Gloucester 8 - Bath 6

A grand and emotional occasion indeed. This rugby football club can prove the most exasperating of comrades but every insipid loss, every false dawn is easily forgiven on days like yesterday. The sun shone, the sporting gods beamed on the city club and Gloucester, from shirt numbers one to fifteen, collided with their West Country rivals with skill, intensity, passion, verve and might. Bath had proved a free-scoring menace to their recent opponents, an ability to offload in the tackle leading to a free-flowing style that teams had struggled mightily to defend against. Not so Gloucester: sustained aggressive defence and an expertly executed tactic of attacking the man with the ball in pairs, one to halt the fellow, the other to prevent a pass, proved the undoing of our visitors from the regency city. In the end, the away side must have felt acute frustration; a seemingly divine right to collect try after try had been thwarted. Drop goals, attempted from half way and speculative chips told their own tale and it was a tale of a door slammed belligerently shut. All were heroes for the cherry and whites. Simpson-Daniel, il principe giovane, earned the telecast’s man of the match gong, and, indeed, his talent shone throughout and he took his five-pointer marvellously. However, for me, the Fijian Qera epitomised the city’s recent emergence as a fine football force with his rugged and abrasive they-shall-not-pass defending married with a keen eye on enterprising attack. His stunningly timed pass that led to the young prince’s try was sublime, a split-second master class in subtlety and flair. One could pen tributes to all that wore the famed colours against Bath but in a way that would undermine the teamwork, the all-for-one magnificence that was on show. The proud old stadium was rocking yesterday , the grizzled ghosts from the past gazing on with approval, the future appearing bright and full of sheer promise. Electric stuff. Electric stuff.