Gloucester beat fellow Prem strugglers Harlequins

The Prem

Harlequins (14) 19

Tries: Waghorn, Smith, Kenningham Cons: Smith 2

Gloucester (7) 26

Tries: Clement, Redshaw, C Atkinson, Clark Cons: C Atkinson 3

Gloucester secured just their second Prem victory of the season as they fought back to beat fellow strugglers Harlequins 26-19 at The Stoop.

The visitors struck early through Jack Clement, but Ben Waghorn barged over to level before England back Marcus Smith crossed to give Quins a 14-7 lead at the break.

Ben Redshaw and Charlie Atkinson went over either side of Jack Kenningham's response to tie the scores at 19-19 with 14 minutes left.

And Arthur Clark reached out to touch down the winning score and give Gloucester their first win in Twickenham since 2019 and their first league double over Quins for 19 years.

Gloucester remain eighth, five points ahead of second-bottom Harlequins who are just four points above bottom side Newcastle after a sixth successive league defeat.

Both sides were desperate to resume their Prem seasons on a positive note after disappointing campaigns and put their Six Nations stars straight back into domestic action.

Gloucester lost their talisman, Tomos Williams, after just 18 minutes, as the Wales scrum-half went off nursing his right shoulder after an accidental collision.

The returning Smith claimed nine points in an impressive first half, but dropped the ball as Quins looked set to break away for a bonus-point try which would have taken them two scores clear early in the second half.

Gloucester hammered away at the Quins line after a fast start and the pressure told when Clement was allowed to twist in the tackle and drop over the line.

The Famous Quarters had little attacking territory for the opening 15 minutes but just a minute after Williams' departure, Waghorn drove through three challenges up to the line and spun out of another tackle to dot down.

And the hosts were ahead before the half-hour when quick ball from a ruck close to the Gloucester line allowed Alex Dombrandt to feed Smith for a simple finish.

The visitors stepped up defensively to survive the final 10 minutes of the half after Lewis Ludlow's yellow card for going in high on Rodrigo Isgro at the breakdown.

In fact the Cherry and Whites could have cut the gap from a scrum penalty on the stroke of half-time, but Charlie Atkinson was off-target with his 40-yard attempt.

Quins dominated the ball after the restart, but Seb Driscoll dropped the ball over the line as he tried to dot down, while a malfunctioning lineout also cost the hosts further promising opportunities.

And they paid the price as Gloucester pounced on a poor pass in midfield and sent Redshaw tearing away down the right touchline for a fine finish.

Kenningham burrowed over from close range to restore the seven-point advantage, but within minutes Atkinson's slick dummy and finish helped tie the scores.

And the hosts were left wondering what might have been as a penalty earned Gloucester great field position, with Clark eventually making the pressure pay.

Harlequins interim head coach Jason Gilmore:

"We are where we are for a reason. We know where we want to get to. We have a plan and structure we feel will get this club back to where it needs to be, but it's going to take hard work.

"No-one is liking it but we have to face reality.

"The three things we want to do is still dream big in Europe - we have Sale in two weeks at home which is massive in terms of the play-offs. We can have a massive go to get into the quarters.

"We want to finish outside the bottom two in the league.

"But, most importantly, we want to use this three months to get as good as we can before we hit the pre-season. We don't want to meander through the rest of the season."

Gloucester head coach George Skivington:

"We're realistic that there's only so much we can do in the league, so we want to get as many points as we can and climb as high as we can.

"We want to make sure that in these last eight games we look like what we want to look like, we go after what we want to go after and play some good rugby.

"We've been clear on what we want and against Harlequins the boys did a good job for the most part. It wasn't perfect, but the forwards were really, really good in the set-piece.

"I've always taken a lot of pride in set-piece but in the last 18 months with us pushing our attack, we've dropped off there and we've been average.

"So the forwards have worked very hard on it over the last couple of months and we got a bit of pay out there when we needed it."

Harlequins: David; Isgro, Waghorn, Bradley, Murley; Smith, Townsend; Kerrod, Walker, Williams; Petti, Treadwell, Kenningham, Driscoll, Dombrandt (c).

Replacements: Musk, Hobson, Delgado, Green, Carr, Friday, Benson, Green.

Gloucester: Redshaw; Joseph, Llewellyn, S. Atkinson, Ollie Thorley; C. Atkinson, Williams (c); Rapava Ruskin, Innard, Fasogbon; Clark, Alemanno, Clement, Ludlow, Trenholm.

Replacements: Boyle-Tiatia, Bleuler, Knight, Thomas, Gwynne, Englefield, Barton, Edwards-Giraud.

Sin-bin: Lewis Ludlow (31).

Referee: Sara Cox.