By Ben Thorne
A dominant second half display, saw Gloucester-Hartpury come from behind to defeat Bristol Bears 36-24 in the Premiership Women’s Final, to retain the trophy for a second consecutive season.
Bristol had the possession and the territory in the opening exchanges of the game, scoring three tries in the first half via Courtney Keight, Lark Atkin-Davies and Hannah Botterman.
Co-captain, Natasha ‘Mo’ Hunt scored against the run of play midway through the first half, keeping Gloucester within touching distance of their opponents as the half time score stood at 17-7.
But the Cherry and White’s dug deep, scoring four tries in 14 minutes, through Pip Hendy, Emma Sing, Mia Venner and Hannah Jones to comeback and lift the trophy, in front of 6,934 at Sandy Park.
Head coach Sean Lynn reflected on his side’s performance: “I couldn’t be more proud of the squad, with the amount of injuries we’ve had.
“The big message at half time was that we needed to have that belief and execute better when we had the ball in hand and that worked very well for us.
“I am absolutely over the moon to have gone back to back, the future is bright at Gloucester-Hartpury.”
The Bears started on the front foot, spinning the ball wide to Reneeqa Bonner on the right wing in the 10th minute, who carried deep into the Gloucester-Hartpury 22.
After numerous forward caries, co-captain Abbie Ward carried over the line but the covering Cherry and White defence did enough as Hannah Jones held her up over the line, forcing a goal line drop out.
Bristol continued their dominance of possession and were eventually awarded as Keight crossed the whitewash, right in the corner on the left hand side, after 17 minutes making the score 5-0.
But Gloucester fought back as Bethan Lewis found a hole in the Bristol defence; she broke into the Bears 22 before passing in field to Hunt who dotted down under the posts.
Sing slotted the conversion, making the score 7-5 to Gloucester-Hartpury.
Bristol replied almost immediately, winning a scrum penalty in the middle of the Gloucester-Hartpury half.
Holly Aitchison kicked to the corner to set up Atkin-Davies to rumble over the line from the back of a maul, putting her side back in front.
The Bears extended their lead late in the first half, with Botterman started and ended the move with two dominant carries.
Her first saw Bristol break into the Gloucester 22 while her second gave her the opportunity to power over, which, in combination with Amber Reed’s conversion, made the score 17-7 – where it remained until half time.
The Cherry and Whites started the second half with much more intensity than the first half.
After a number of successful caries, Gloucester found themselves within ten metres of the Bristol line; play came wide to Lewis out on the right wing, where she collected a loose ball and thought she had done enough to carry over.
However, the hand of Meryl Smith prevented the back rower from grounding the ball as the TMO disallowed the try.
The Cherry and Whites were patient, keeping the play deep in the Bears’ territory for large periods of the second half.
A steady scrum gave them a beautiful platform to attack from as they passed wide to Hendy on the left wing who dotted down in the corner, making the score 17-12.
Sing kicked the extras, closing the gap to just three points.
Gloucester scored again less than four minutes later; they worked the ball down field before finding Sing out wide who scored in the same corner as Hendy moments earlier, she then converted her own try, giving the holders a 21-17 lead on the hour mark.
The Cherry and Whites scored again in a very similar fashion. Hunt took a quick tap penalty before the ball was passed brilliantly along the back line to Venner who scored in the 62nd minute, in the corner on the right hand side.
Sing continued her flawless performance with the tee to take the score to 28-17.
The relentless Gloucester attack were rewarded with a fifth try, five minutes later as Jones carried the ball over, again in the right corner, which took the score to 33-17.
In the 75th minute, Bristol enjoyed a spell of possession culminating in a try out on the touchline scored by Ella Lovibond, the ball came wide to the replacement on the left wing where she crashed over.
Reed hammered the ball through the posts, to cut the deficit to nine, with only a few minutes remaining.
Sing kicked a last minute penalty through the sticks, making the score 36-24 as the Cherry and Whites held on to retain the PWR.
GLOUCESTER-HARTPURY:
TRIES: 5 (Hunt 25’, Hendy 54’, Sing 58’, Venner 62’, Jones 68’)
CONVERSIONS: 4 (Sing 26’, 55’, 60’, 64’)
PENALTIES: 1 (Sing 79’)
DROP GOALS: 0
YELLOW CARDS: 0
RED CARDS: 0
15. Emma Sing 14. Mia Venner 13. Hannah Jones 12. Tatyana Heard 11. Pip Hendy 10. Lleucu George 9. Natasha ‘Mo’ Hunt (co-captain) 1. Mackenzie Carson 2. Neve Jones 3. Maud Muir 4. Sarah Beckett 5. Sam Monaghan 6. Georgia Brock 7. Bethan Lewis 8. Zoe Aldcroft (co-captain)
Replacements
16. Amy Dale 17. El Perry 18. Sisilia Tuipulotu 19. Kate Williams 20. Steph Else 21. Bianca Blackburn 22. Millie Hyett 23. Rachel Lund
BRISTOL BEARS:
TRIES: 4 (Keight 17’, Atkin-Davies 31’, Botterman 39’, Lovibond 75’)
CONVERSIONS: 2 (Reed 40’, 75’)
PENALTIES: 0
DROP GOALS: 0
YELLOW CARDS: 0
RED CARDS: 0
15. Meryl Smith 14. Reneeqa Bonner 13. Phoebe Murray 12. Holly Aitchison 11. Courtney Keight 10. Amber Reed (co-captain) 9. Kiera Bevan 1. Hannah Botterman 2. Lark Atkin-Davies 3. Sarah Bern 4. Delaney Burns 5. Abbie Ward (co-captain) 6. Alisha Joyce-Butchers 7. Evie Gallagher 8. Rownita Marston-Mulhearn
Replacements
16. Jess Sprague 17. Simi Pam 18. Elliann Clarke 19. Hollie Cunningham 20. Gabriella Nigrelli 21. Lucy Burgess 22. Ella Lovibond 23. Jenny Hesketh