Match Centre: Gallagher Premiership: Newcastle Falcons 14-18 Gloucester

Newcastle Falcons 14-18 Gloucester, Kingston Park

Gloucester managed to hold on a late fightback from Newcastle Falcons as they sealed a 18-14 victory in the second round of the Gallagher Premiership at Kingston Park on Friday.

The result meant Gloucester move to the top of the table with two wins from as many games while the Falcons are at eighth after losing both their fixtures in the campaign.

The visitors got the first points in the game in the 8th minute as George Barton kicked a three pointer from inside the 22 before George McGuigan dived over following a powerful driving maul.

Barton kicked the conversion to increase Gloucester's lead to 0-10 but missed out on the extras in their second try that came in the 21st minute when Ben Stevenson was deceived by a swirling wind before Jacob Morris pounced on a loose ball to touchdown as the Cherry and Whites increased the lead to 15 points.

Newcastle's problems compounded as skipper Callum Chick was sin-binned at the stroke of half time as they completed the opening half trailing by 15 points.

The home side did well not to concede a point when they were down to 14 players and as Chick returned from sin-bin, Tom Penny's effort thwarted Gloucester's attempt for a third try. Nevertheless, Barton kicked his second penalty goal in the 54th minute extending their lead to 0-18.

With 13 minutes left in the game, McGuigan was yellow carded for collapsing a maul and to make things worse the referee awarded Newcastle a penalty try reducing the gap down to 11 points. Adam Radwan punished the visitors as he exhibited great speed to race in the corner dotting down and Connon improved it but they eventually succumbed to a four-point defeat.

Team line up:

Newcastle: Redshaw; Radwan, Penny, Jennings, Stevenson; Connon, O'Sullivan; Brocklebank, Blamire, McCallum, Van der Walt, De Chaves, Lockwood, Pepper, Chick (c).

Reserves: Van Vuuren, Brantingham, Tampin, McDonald, Cross, Stuart, Orlando, Obatoyinbo.

Gloucester: Evans; Morris, Harris, Atkinson, Thorley; Barton, Varney; Ford-Robinson, McGuigan, Balmain, Clarke, Clark, Donnell, Ludlow (c), Mercer.

Reserves: Blake, Rapava-Ruskin, Knight, Thomas, Clement, Chapman, Llewellyn, Hearle.