Gloucester rue errors in last-gasp defeat at Exeter

Gloucester head coach George Skivington bemoaned his side’s late errors as they conceded 10 points in the last four minutes to lose 25-24 to Exeter at Sandy Park.

The Cherry and Whites were unfortunate to lose key flanker Albert Tuisue in the first half, but rallied to lead 24-15 with two tries in three minutes.

The visitors ended up outscoring their opponents 4-3, in terms of tries, to pick up two losing bonus points, but that would be scant consolation for Skivington as Gloucester continued their miserable league record at Sandy Park, where they have not won since January 2015.

Jack Clement, Ollie Thorley, Louis Rees-Zammit and Seb Atkinson crossed for Gloucester, with George Barton landing two conversions.

Rusi Tuima, Dafydd Jenkins and Stu Townsend scored Exeter’s tries, with Henry Slade adding two conversions and two penalties, including the crucial three-pointer with the last kick of the game from 45 metres.

Skivington said: “It’s stinging right now as we should have closed that game out, but our errors gave them the opportunity to come back into it.

“The last crucial penalty was a 50-50 call and I’m not too aggrieved about that as more often than not those penalties go in favour of the attacking side, but there are few other tight calls which I felt didn’t go our way.

“The boys worked ferociously hard to keep our line intact during the sin-bin period, but we did leave two or three tries out there.

“I feel a lot whole lot better than I did last week after our game against Bath as the last 30 minutes there were not acceptable in terms of physicality, which we rectified today.”

Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter was relieved to bounce back from last week’s defeat at Northampton despite his side’s performance.

He said: “There’s two ways of looking at it. During our successful years, we have won a lot of games like that with scores in the last five minutes.

“But then again the team have to ask themselves whether they were satisfied with their performance going in those final minutes, and today the answer would probably be not.

“The second half got away from us with too many unforced errors as some of kicks went off-beat, which surrendered momentum, and there was a moment of ill-discipline by questioning the referee which cost us dear.

“We were in control and I thought we were going to be the side making the breakthrough, but then we turn around and give them two tries.”