Kata stars as Leicester swat aside limp Gloucester

The Prem

Leicester (19) 45

Tries: Thompson, Kata, penalty try, Steward, Reffell, Searle, Chessum Cons: Searle 3, Bailey

Gloucester (0) 14

Tries: Hathaway, Clement Cons: Byrne 2

Leicester moved level on points with Prem leaders Bath after Solomone Kata inspired the Tigers to a crushing victory over Gloucester.

The Tongan centre scored a superb individual try and created another for a ruthless Leicester, who secured their fourth successive league win.

The hosts finished with seven tries, with the only blot on their evening a 20-minute red card for replacement hooker Charlie Clare late on for a dangerous clearout on Jack Clement.

Second-bottom Gloucester, who have won once at Mattioli Woods Welford Road in 18 years, never threatened to improve on that dismal record in a hugely disappointing performance.

It was an unhappy evening in particular for captain Tomos Williams who had a forgettable game defensively at the end of a week in which it was confirmed that he will leave the Cherry and Whites at the end of the season.

Leicester led 19-0 at the break on the back of a terrific first half from Kata, who scored one superb individual try and created another for flanker James Thompson.

Kata took the Tigers deep into Gloucester territory in the 12th minute with a lovely outside break, leaving Thompson to finish the job from short range.

Then, nine minutes later, he found acres of space from a scrum on halfway after cutting back on a sharp inside line to race in unopposed.

The home side grabbed a third score just before the break when referee Karl Dickson awarded a penalty try, judging that Gloucester had illegally prevented Ollie Hassell-Collins from touching down.

Charlie Atkinson, who had combined with Will Butler to stop the touchdown, was yellow-carded, and while the Gloucester full-back was absent Leicester struck twice more early in the second half.

Scrum-half Tom Whiteley finished off a break from the dangerous Freddie Steward before the scrum-half’s chip caused havoc in the Gloucester defence and Tommy Reffell was on hand to add Leicester’s fifth.

Billy Searle, who added six points with the boot, jinked his way through some non-existent Gloucester defence for a sixth.

And even though Leicester were reduced to 14 following Clare’s dismissal in the 67th minute, they were still able to add another.

British and Irish Lions and England second row Ollie Chessum, making his return off the bench after six weeks out with a foot problem, rampaged over from Jamie Blamire’s offload.

Josh Hathaway and Clement at least got Gloucester on the scoreboard.

But having lost hooker Seb Blake and wing Rob Russell to injury inside the first 25 minutes, the visitors then lost Seb Atkinson in the second half to a failed HIA to cap a night to forget for the Cherry and Whites.

Leicester Tigers head coach Geoff Parling told BBC Radio Leicester:

‘I thought he (Solomone Kata) was fantastic. I think someone said he made 71 metres with the ball in hand. His collisions are always huge, but Sol actually moves the ball better than people give him credit for.

“I thought we moved the ball better – or more – than we have done previously which is something we’ve been working on.

“We thought we could exploit Gloucester by just moving the ball a little bit more. We’ve got some very, very good outside backs who like to get the ball in their hands.

“We always know we can fall back to our set-piece because that is obviously normally a strength of ours.”

Gloucester captain Tomos Williams told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

‘Very disappointing. We had a pretty poor start and then continued the night in the same fashion.

“It was a lot of our own inaccuracies. We probably got caught in two minds during the game and if you’re not fully committed then that’s when those inaccuracies come. Fair play to Leicester, they forced some errors as well, I thought they played very well.

“The try at the end of the first half probably put a dampener on our spirits and then again at the start of the second half. When you concede two tries either side of half-time so close, you’re always going to be struggling.

“Saracens are coming on the 27th for the Christmas game and we need to get our heads down for that game. We’re at home and we can’t have a performance like that at Kingsholm in front of the locals. We owe them a lot more than that performance, definitely.”

Leicester: Steward; Radwan, Perese, Kata, Hassell-Collins; Searle, Whiteley; Smith, Blamire, Heyes, Henderson, Wells, Thompson, Reffell (c), Moro.

Replacements: Clare, Haffar, Hurd, Chessum, Williams, van Poortvliet, Bailey, Woodward.

20-minute red card: Clare (67).

Gloucester: C Atkinson; Russell, Butler, S Atkinson, Thorley; Byrne, Williams (c); Rapava Ruskin, Blake, Laulala, Thomas, Clark, Basham, Ludlow, Clement.

Replacements: Innard, Ford-Robinson, Fasogbon, Jordan, Taylor, Austin, Knight, Hathaway.

Yellow card: C Atkinson (40).

Referee: Karl Dickson