The Sunday Times April 3, 2022 15Dan Robson kept his calm when the
rest of Kingsholm was losing its cool
to drop a 45-metre goal that kept
Wasps in the hunt for top-flight
European rugby next term.
On 75 minutes, with the scores
level at 21 apiece, Robson returned
Billy Twelvetrees’ goalline drop-out
with interest to land the spoils and
round off a madcap second half.
Jimmy Gopperth made sure of the
win with his fourth successful kick of
the afternoon with a minute left on
the clock.
But Wasps had to endure an
agonising last few moments as they
turned over the ball in their own half
and handed Gloucester possession.
But the home lineout, who have
Robson and Gopperth complete rally and keep Wasps on track
hardly put a foot wrong all season,
could not get their side over the line,
and when they coughed up the ball
Robson launched it into the stands.
After a turgid first period the game
sparked into life and the teams were
tied at 14-14 going into the final
quarter. Gloucester were the first to
blink when Louis Rees-Zammit was
sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate
knock-on and Wasps made the most
of it when Robson put the fly half
Charlie Atkinson away from a maul.
A Gloucester penalty try evened
things up yet again with nine minutes
left before Robson’s drop-goal,
Gopperth’s garnish and the agonising
ending for the home side.
The former Gloucester captain
Dave Sims, who died last month aged
52, had been remembered before
kick-off with a minute’s applause.
The former lock would have liked
the way his team have gone back
to their traditional strengths of a
strong-mauling pack, but there wasprecious else for the Kingsholm
faithful to applaud.
Wasps have top-eight aspirations
but neither side looked capable of
achieving their ambitions in a
desperate first 40 minutes. The
referee, Matt Carley, gave 14 penalties
in a stop-start period, with ten
conceded by the visitors, and he
finally snapped when he sent both
hookers to the sin-bin after 38
minutes of scrappy scrums. Whether
he got the men responsible for the
chaos is another matter, because
there were also four props involved.
Two Adam Hastings penalties put
Gloucester 6-0 up at the break, with
Wasps having a try by Paolo Odogwu
ruled out after Alfie Barbeary, who
had picked the ball up at a ruck near
halfway, was ruled offside.
The chance came out of the blue
and so did Wasps’ first legitimate
score on 44 minutes, when the wing
Santiago Carreras saw Jacob Umaga
run in from 70 metres after chargingGLOUCESTER 21
WASPS 27
Adam Hathaway
down his kick from a loose ball. Then
Gabriel Oghre started and finished a
lineout score, holding his nerve as
the Wasps pack advanced.
That was 14-6 to Wasps, but Kyle
Moyle cut it to 14-11 when he scored
after gathering his own high ball and
Hastings tied it up before the finale.Star man Dan Robson (Wasps).
Scorers: Gloucester: Tries Moyle (53min),
penalty try (71). Pens Hastings 3 (14, 36, 58).
Wasps: Tries: Umaga (44), Oghre (51), Atkinson
(65). Cons Gopperth 3. Pen Gopperth (79).
Drop-goal Robson (75).
Gloucester K Moyle; S Carreras, C Harris,
M Atkinson (B Twelvetrees 46), L Rees-Zammit
(sin-bin 64-74); A Hastings (T Seabrook 72),
B Meehan (C Chapman 50); V Rapava-Ruskin
(H Elrington 50), J Singleton (sin-bin 38-48; S
Socino 67), F Balmain (K Gotovtsev 53), F Clarke,
M Alemanno (A Davidson 68), J Reid (S Socino 38-
48, B Morgan 53), L Ludlow (capt), R Ackermann.
Wasps J Umaga; P Odogwu (D Frost 38-48),
M Fekitoa, J Gopperth, J Bassett; C Atkinson,
W Porter (D Robson 55); T West (B Harris 77),
G Oghre (sin-bin 38- 48; D Frost 59 (sin-bin 72),
B Alo (E Millar-Mills 49), J Launchbury (capt),
E Stooke, B Shields (V Fifita 23), J Willis,
A Barbeary (T Willis 77).
Wasps’ Oghre celebrates his try Referee M Carley (RFU). Attendance 11,628.son of unconvincing displays. Exeter
rounded off a crushing second-half
performance with a try for their Argen-
tinian No 8, Santiago Grondona.
Bath were pointless in the second
half. They left Devon with nothing but
a fine 30 minutes and an outstanding
full 80 from Underhill. He is one for
England’s future. On this form, Exeter
are right back in the Premiership mix
in the here and now.
Star man Sam Underhill (Bath)
Scorers: Exeter Chiefs: Tries Vermeulen (13min),
JAMES SMITH/JMP/SHUTTERSTOCKSteve Diamond branded his
Worcester Warriors players
“pathetic and embarrassing” after
their surprise 10-45 defeat by a
Newcastle Falcons side winning in
the league for the first time in five
months (Gary Fitzgerald writes).
Diamond was so annoyed by
his team’s lack of effort at Sixways
that he threatened to prevent his
men from having planned time off
with a European bye week coming
up. “It was a wholly pathetic
performance,” he said. “It was
inexcusable to perform as
professionals like that. We didn’t
raise ourselves to the challenge in
any area of the game.”
Worcester, who lost the full
back Noah Heward to concussion
after only 44 seconds, were never
in the contest as the away side
took control early on, with George
McGuigan, the hooker, charging
over in the fourth minute. Perry
Humphreys scored for the home
side but there were further first-
half tries for Newcastle by Brett
Connon, the fly half, who
amassed 20 points, and Adam
Radwan as the away side swept
into a 21-5 half-time lead.
Louis Schreuder, Trevor
Davison and Jamie Blamire all
scored in the second half for
Newcastle, while Worcester had a
solitary Ted Hill try to show for
their efforts after half-time.PATHETIC WORCESTER
WALLOPED BY FALCONSEwers (38), Schickerling (40), Keast (64), Hogg
(71), Grondona (75). Cons Simmonds 4, Hogg 2.
Bath: Tries Cokanasiga 2 (11, 31), Bayliss (19).
Cons Bailey 2. Pen Bailey (26).
Exeter Chiefs S Hogg; O Woodburn (J Hodge
55min), I Whitten, T Hendrickson, T O’Flaherty;
J Simmonds (H Skinner 33-41), S Maunder
(J Maunder 53); A Hepburn (B Keast 21), J Yeandle,
P Schickerling (M Street 53), J Kirsten, J Gray,
D Ewers (R Capstick 55), S Skinner, J Vermeulen
(S Grondona 72).
Bath T de Glanville (D Cipriani 44); J Cokanasiga
(W Butt 71), J Joseph, M Clark, W Muir; O Bailey,
B Spencer (J Simpson 71); V Morozov (A Cordwell
34), T Dunn (T Doughty 57), W Stuart (D Rae 65),
W Spencer (M Williams 57), C Ewels, J Bayliss,
S Underhill, N Hughes (E Richards 61).
Referee W Barnes Attendance 13,651it’s more that I was good in the prison
setting due to my rugby,” she says.
Cleall is perfectly suited to a team
driven by dizzyingly high standards,
often self-motivating, as the rest of
the world struggles to keep up with
them. “I don’t think I have played the
best rugby I can yet,” she says. “I still
think I can get better, and we can as a
team too.”
So can the women’s game. The
World Cup is in October and Cleall
says there is a particularly exciting
momentum behind this year’s Six
Nations. The schedule has been
completely separated from the
men’s, allowing fans’ full attention to
be on the women’s matches. The
new sponsor, TikTok, is pushing the
game to more than a billion people.
“These platforms are the perfect
place to try to grow the women’s
game,” Cleall says.
Encouraging viewing figures
and sell-out crowds are pinch-me
moments for Cleall, who wants even
more: “Does it get boring when,
every week, we’re breaking records?
Some day soon we’ll stop breaking
records but, at the moment, it’s a
good place to be.”When Poppy Cleall was eight years
old, the England player Emily
Feltham visited her rugby club. The
young fan was starstruck, smiling for
a photograph with Feltham and
sticking it up on her bedroom wall.
“I held it so close in my memory,”
Cleall recalls. “When I started playing
for England, I always remembered it
and thought: ‘I want to go to clubs
and schools and give back.’ ”
The meeting inspired her to set up
the Women’s Rugby Agency two
years ago, a hub where schools, clubs
and businesses can go to request
visits and talks from the top female
players in the country. She has sent
schools the likes of Marlie Packer and
Katy Daley-McLean, and arranged for
Rocky Clark to give an International
Women’s Day talk to the police.
That Cleall juggles this with
playing full-time for England and
Saracens — and, in her coach’s words,
being one of the best players in the
world right now — is, she seems to
think, no big deal. “I feel bad if I miss
an email,” she says, laughing. “It’s not
hard to organise. You know they’re
going to be made up — one kid burst
into tears when she saw her favourite
player. The emotions, inspiring the
kids, outweighs the work.”
Cleall will undoubtedly inspire
many young girls herself when she
leads England out against Italy today.The 29-year-old will captain from the
No 8 position, with the team’s usual
skipper, Sarah Hunter, named as a
replacement, albeit with title intact.
These are big shoes to fill. “Sarah
is always going to be a massive leader,
whether or not she is the game day
captain,” Cleall says. “She is always
hugely vocal and someone who
leads really well. I’ve played 50 caps
and I reckon for 49 of them she
was captain.”
Has Cleall’s leadership style been
influenced by her time as a prison
officer at Feltham Young Offenders
Institution and HMP Bristol, where
she worked for three years before
she received her full-time England
contract? “My prison career came
after I was a rugby player, so I thinkThe Cleall
Deal: No 8
leads from
the front on
and off pitch
WOMEN’S SIX NATIONS 2022
P W D L PD B Pts
France 220068210Wales 220013210England 11005215Scotland 2 0 0 2 -57 1 1Italy 1 0 0 1 -33 0 0Ireland 2 0 0 2 -43 0 0REBECCA
MYERSON TV TODAY
Italy v England
BBC 2, 3pmMARK RUNNACLES/GETTY IMAGESCleall will be leading England in the absence of the usual captain Hunter