Gloucester roar back to beat Bordeaux

The hosts got off to a nightmare start, with a missed tackle leaving Sipili Falatea free to charge over for a try inside two minutes.

After Zack Holmes extended Bordeaux’s lead to 10 points with a simple penalty, Gloucester finally got themselves on the board, with a delightful offload from Santiago Socino sending Stephen Varney in under the posts.

The outstanding Tom Willis responded for Bordeaux, his effort deemed to have been grounded after a lengthy TMO check, meaning that the away side went into half-time 17-5 up.

Gloucester improved after the break with a few deft offloads and no-look passes leading to sporadic breaks. But they were turned over and forced into errors too easily by a well-drilled, powerful Bordeaux side, and it looked as though the game was slipping away.

But Holmes dragged a penalty wide and missed the chance to extend Bordeaux’s lead beyond two converted tries, Gloucester then sensed hope of snatching a comeback victory.

And when Albert Tuisue celebrated his return from a ban by powering over to reduce the deficit, the home crowd found their voice and the momentum changed.

Another try from Socino reduced the deficit to 17-15, but the conversion was missed amid claims of an early charge on Santiago Carreras from the away side.

But it didn’t matter, as Charlie Chapman went in under the posts to complete the comeback, and Gloucester saw the game out, spurred on by a raucous Kingsholm crowd.

Gloucester face the daunting task of a trip to the RDS Arena to take on last year’s beaten finalists Leinster Rugby next week. Meanwhile, Bordeaux-Bègles will be looking to bounce back at home to a Cell C Sharks side that beat Harlequins in their opener.