Gloucester kick-start Gallagher Premiership with 27-16 win over Northampton

Gloucester Rugby 27-16 Northampton Saints, Kingsholm
Scorecard

Danny Cipriani made a memorable debut for Gloucester Rugby as the Cherry and Whites completed a 27-16 win over Northampton Saints in their Gallagher Premiership opener at Kingsholm on Saturday.

The win has taken Gloucester to the third position in the table with Northampton Saints positioned 10th.

Billy Twelvetrees opened the account for Gloucester with a second minute penalty goal and the lead for home side became eight points when hooker James Hanson dotted down five minutes later.

Northampton's response came in the 11th minute when Dan Biggar slotted a penalty but Twelvetrees negated it a couple of minutes later. The opening try for the visitors came in the 15th minute when Ahsee Tuala offloaded to centre Piers Francis, who in turn dived over the line as they reduced the trail to three points.

Gloucester suffered a setback when Ed Slater was sin-binned in the 17th minute but the visitors could not quite capitalise on it as Biggar and Twelvetrees traded penalties leaving the home side to maintain their slender three-point lead.

As the half time was approaching, Cipriani produced a moment of brilliance to send Charlie Sharples over the line with Twelvetrees improving it to take the scoreline to 21-11 heading into the break.

With the third quarter going without a point, Twelvetrees kicked his fourth penalty goal to stretch the lead to 24-11 and despite their second sin-bin in the game that saw replacement Tom Hudson yellow carded in the 65th minute, all Northampton managed was a try from Courtney Lawes in the 66th minute.

Twelvetrees slotted his fifth three-pointer in the 77th minute and just when Northampton thought they secured a losing bonus point, TMO denied it as they struggled to make an impact in the opening game of the season.