RUGBY: Valiant Gloucester suffer derby loss to Bath (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Red card for Darren Dawidiuk too much to overcome

12:37pm Saturday 2nd March 2013 in Sport

GLOUCESTER boss Nigel Davies refused to be drawn on the red card of Darren Dawidiuk and instead singled out his side's inability to compete at the set piece after they crashed to an Aviva Premiership derby-day loss at Bath, writes Sacha Clayton.

A near faultless kicking display from Tom Heathcote, who finished with 16 points, coupled with a penalty try and scores from Kyle Eastmond and Tom Biggs were enough to see off a spirited Gloucester.

Despite playing the final 30 minutes with 14 men after the red card for hooker Dawidiuk, the Cherry and Whites were always in the game after two tries from Jonny May and a score from Henry Trinder.

Freddie Burns, back from injury, experienced a day to forget with the boot and was eventually withdrawn with just under half an hour still to play.

Davies said: "Our set piece didn't function very well at all, I thought our accuracy really let us down and that's disappointing and because of that we couldn't take control of the game.

"We still had our moments though; I thought we harshly had a try disallowed but that's what happens.

"The important thing is to look at ourselves and understand what we could have done differently.

"The referee has to make those calls and they didn't go for us today.

"To go down to 14 men with 30 minutes still to go and to earn that bonus point was very pleasing – most teams wouldn't do that but we did.

"The team worked hard for each other and because of that we've always got a chance. I'm pleased with this group of boys."

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