SARACENS crashed out of the Powergen Cup at Kingsholm on Saturday, January 25, as they were taught a rugby lesson by a rampant Gloucester side, who sent the men in black spiralling to their heaviest defeat under Buck Shelford's reign in an eight-try demolition.

Already without the injured Thomas Castaignede, Andy Goode, Morgan Williams, Abdel Benazzi and David Flatman, Sarries lost influential prop Christian Califano on the morning of the match with a groin problem, while Buck Shelford stuck by his decision to rest England flanker Richard Hill.

Subsequently, a patched-up Sarries' side, painfully out-muscled up-front, were no match for the Zurich Premiership league leaders who put the men in black to sword in a merciless display.

The expected backlash from Gloucester, smarting from the mauling in Limerick the previous week, took just two minutes to materialise when James Forrester peeled away from the back of a 22-metre scrum for the opening try.

It got worse for Sarries six minutes later when Gloucester counter-attacked from inside their half to score a breakaway try through Springbok Thinus Delport.

The shell-shocked visitors finally regained their composure and hit back on 12 minutes when a mis-pass from Tim Horan found the overlapping Adyran Winnan, who collected his own deft chip over the Gloucester defence to halve the deficit.

Nicky Little, making his comeback from a broken arm, missed the conversion, but slotted a penalty on 15 minutes to bring the visitors to within two points, but Gloucester countered with a penalty from Ludovic Mercier on 21 minutes.

The home side stretched their advantage to ten points on 29 minutes when Terry Fanolua burst between Storey and Tom Shanklin for the third try, while Delport added his second on the stroke of half-time, rounding off a sweeping cross-field move. Mercier banged over his first conversion to give the Cherry and Whites a 23-8 half-time lead.

Within a minute of the restart, Sarries hinted at the possibility of a fight-back when a superb piece of finishing from Shanklin, who sped past three tacklers after a pass from Horan, gave the visitors a lifeline.

It proved a false dawn as Gloucester put the tie beyond doubt on 48 minutes when a perfectly-timed pass from James Simpson-Daniel presented Andy Gomarsall with a simple score. Mercier converted to give the home side a 30-13 lead.

It got worse for the men in black on the hour mark when lock forward Adam Eustace crashed over from close range. Mercier unerringly added the conversion as the hosts began to pull clear.

Even the 62nd minute sin-binning of Gloucester's uncompromising stand-in skipper Jake Boer and the introduction of the talismanic Hill failed to stem the tide as the home side added their seventh try on 67 minutes through prop Rodrigo Roncero, who sauntered over in the left-hand corner. Mercier added the extras.

Sarries gave a glimpse of their quality three minutes later when a clever chip through from Little was scooped up expertly by Richard Haughton, who danced his way over for a fine score under the posts, with Winnan adding the conversion.

But it merely proved a consolation as Gloucester underlined their dominance by completing the rout on 75 minutes with another flowing cross-field move that culminated in Forrester charging over to complete his brace. Henry Paul rounded off the scoring by slotting the conversion to seal the 51-20 success.

January 27, 2003 15:30