Gloucester ....................... 23pts
Tries: Atkinson 47, Jordan 50
Conversions: Barton 47, 50
Penalties: Evans 40, Barton 55, 65
Leicester ........................... 13pts
Tries: Liebenberg 74
Conversions: Pollard 74
Penalties: Pollard 25, 31
GLOUCESTER won their first Premiership Cup title – and first trophy in nine years – after scoring 17 points while Tigers had hooker Finn Theobald–Thomas and full-back Mike Brown in the sin-bin.
After a dour first 39 minutes, Glouceter trailed 6-0 but two yellow cards in seven minutes saw Leicester crumble as the hosts upped their game to take a decisive advantage.
Leicester director of rugby Dan McKellar said: “We had 15 minutes of chaos during which we lost all momentum. There were too many penalties and too many turnovers which came after a decent defensive effort in the first half.
“We still wanted more possession in that period and we showed what we could do in the last 10 minutes but by then the game had gone.”
Premiership Rugby had billed this competition as a development one but if at the outset, they expected to end up a free-flowing final from promising youngsters then they were misguided.
A near sell-out Kingsholm crowd were instead treated to a war of attrition played out by two battle-hardened rivals, with very limited game-plans.
Leicester merely looked to rely on a huge defensive effort with more accurate goal-kicking from Handre Pollard to see them to victory.
It had merit as Pollard didn’t miss with his three attempts whereas George Barton could only manage four from seven but those yellow cards scuppered Leicester’s hopes.
Still Gloucester thoroughly deserved their win as their forwards won the battle at the breakdown but poor and repeated kicking from half-backs, Barton and Caolan Englefield, resulted in them going into half-time in arrears.
An offside decision against Josh Bassett gave Barton the first chance for points but his 50 metre penalty fell just under the crossbar. Minutes later, Tigers had their first opportunity when from a maul on the opposition 22 Tom Whiteley darted past some weak tackling and looked a likely scorer until Lloyd Evans pulled off an excellent tackle.
As a result a competitive first quarter finished scoreless before Pollard gave the visitors the lead with two penalties in quick succession.
Gloucester then suffered a further blow when Barton withdre
