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A. Clark (9'), M. Llewellyn (13'), G. Barton (33'), W. Trenholm (56', 60')
Tries
M. Relo (4'), S. Falatea (19'), P. Uberti (46'), L. Bielle-Biarrey (50', 62')
G. Barton (10', 14', 34', 61')
Conversions
M. Lucu (5', 20', 51', 63')
G. Barton (40')
Penalties
M. Lucu (25')
What did this actually tell us? That Gloucester Rugby can run the back-to-back European champions hard over 80, and that Union Bordeaux Bègles still carry enough class to steal momentum anywhere, even under the Kingsholm lights. With little authoritative post-match detail out there, the clearest picture comes from the scoring pattern and the numbers: parity almost everywhere you looked, spikes of ruthlessness from both, and not quite enough control from either to finish the job.
The game kept correcting itself. Gloucester’s scrum was solid, their carry game heavy through the middle, their bench sharp. Bordeaux countered with a flawless lineout and lethal width when space finally appeared. Discipline balanced out, turnovers were near level, and both defences leaked just enough to keep hope alive. That’s how you get to 36 apiece without either side feeling robbed.
Gloucester’s best passages came when they put a proper engine on the ball. Jack Clement was the drumbeat — 16 carries for 88 metres — and his surges kept the gain line moving even when shape frayed. Behind him, George Barton from full-back was decisive rather than busy: 108 metres, a clean break, a well-timed trail line for his try and a clean 4/4 off the tee plus a penalty. Add punch from Seb Atkinson and a few telling darts by Charlie Atkinson, and Gloucester had enough front-foot ball to score five. They also got a genuine bench pop: Will Trenholm arrived with intent, scored twice in four minutes and pinched two turnovers to tilt the breakdown their way during the hour mark surge.
Where Gloucester’s platform really counted was the scrum. Six from six and noisily on top when it mattered, they squeezed territory and clean exits while Bordeaux were at 75% and felt it. The snag was the restarts of possession: Bordeaux’s lineout never blinked — 14 from 14 — so any clearance that didn’t find grass came back on rails. That perfect launch game underpinned Bordeaux’s second-half rally and is a big part of why Gloucester couldn’t close it out from 36–29.
CARRIES
CLEAN BREAKS
TACKLE
TACKLES MISSED
TURNOVERS WON
PENALTIES CONCEDED
POSSESSION
SCRUMS
LINEOUTS
Bordeaux’s scores were a mix of opportunism and structure. The early snipe from Martin Page Relo set a tone: take what’s presented. Later, the cleanest pattern came off the top — midfield shape, hard square running to fix, then strike wide. Louis Bielle-Biarrey finished twice because the edge pictures were right and the ball got there on time. Maxime Lucu, wearing 10, managed the scoreboard impeccably with four conversions and a penalty and picked good moments to play down the touchlines. And in the grunt work, Tom Willis quietly did what good eights do in Europe: 18 carries, 14 tackles, and enough clean-ups to turn messy ball into usable ball.
Both teams will watch the missed-tackle clips with a wince. Gloucester missed 23, Bordeaux 21, and too many of those failures were on first contact in the wide channels. You could see it on the sequence that brought the game back to level after Trenholm’s brace: Bordeaux worked Gloucester laterally, kept their width, and found the finish. Equally, Bordeaux were sliced through the middle more than they’d like. Clement, Barton and Will Joseph all punched holes; Ben Loader broke the line twice and carried for 67 metres, though he fell off a few defensively. That trade — clean breaks for both, scramble saving as often as it didn’t — is why no lead stuck for long.
The decisive turns? Two of them, neither complicated. First, Bordeaux leveraged that perfect lineout right after the interval, stacking pressure into back-to-back tries to flip a 24–17 deficit. Then Gloucester’s bench landed: Rapava-Ruskin kept the scrum standard, Seb Blake added tempo, and Trenholm’s support lines punished a defence that had started to fold in. From there, the last 17 minutes told you the rest. With the scores tied, risk appetite shrank, both sides kicked longer, and the whistle count stayed low. Eight penalties conceded each across the 80 and a near-even turnover ledger (7–6) meant neither side got a cheap three or a maul walkover to nick it.
Individual notes matter when the margins are this fine. For Gloucester, Jac Morgan had two important steals and set the tone around the jackal, Arthur Clark delivered a try and a workmanlike shift in the tight, and Jean Kleyn anchored the pack before emptying the tank. For Bordeaux, Nicolas Depoortere tackled everything in front of him, Cameron Woki nicked a key turnover, and the front-row rotation after the hour stabilised a scrum that had been creaking. None of it swung the game on its own; together it explained the stalemate.
So, what does each side take? Gloucester will be encouraged they out-carried and out-broke the champions, that their 10–15 axis produced, and that the scrum travelled for them. But they’ll know they left points out there with soft edges and two lineouts they didn’t secure while Bordeaux were perfect. If this group is going to win tight European nights, the exits after scores and the fold speed in the tramlines need to be sharper. Bordeaux, for their part, will leave content with two away points and the knowledge their launch game and back-three finishing are where they need to be. But the scrum can’t live at 75%, and conceding a dozen clean breaks on the road is a red flag against the better sides to come.
Strip away the noise and the draw makes sense. Gloucester’s carry and scrum advantage met Bordeaux’s lineout and edge efficiency, discipline cancelled out, and two benches of substance pulled in opposite directions. Kingsholm didn’t blink, the holders didn’t blink, and neither quite earned the last shot. There’s enough here for both coaches to feel justified in their plan — and enough for both to be annoyed they didn’t win it.
