Alex Matthews’ ominous warning after Gloucester-Hartpury’s 14th straight win

Loughborough Lightning 26 Gloucester Hartpury 61

Gloucester-Hartpury remain unbeaten, the defending Premiership Women’s Rugby champions racking up win No 14 with another dominant performance by scoring nine tries against Loughborough Lightning.

There is a real chance that Gloucester could finish the regular season unbeaten, with attention already drifting towards their trip to face second-placed Saracens at the end of May, with the gap between the top two now sitting at 14 points.

Once again they were marshalled brilliantly by Natasha Hunt, with the quality midfield pairing of Tatyana Heard and Wales captain Hannah Jones excelling behind a pack featuring three top England internationals in Maud Muir, Zoe Aldcroft and the player of the match Alex Matthews.

Ominously for the rest of the league, Matthews told TNT Sports afterwards: “We have a lot to work on. Our defence getting off the line and especially our lineouts, that’s not where our standards are. A lot to work on this week and we just want to keep pushing and get better.”

A typically powerful run from Heard gave the league leaders the perfect start after four minutes, hitting a flat line and breaking out of tackles from Carmella Morrall and Helen Nelson to score. Loughborough’s response was rapid, Emily Scarratt hitting a quality line before being stopped just short. Laura Keates, who recently made her first appearance in two years, followed up and was a popular scorer.

Gloucester-Hartpury’s scrum is just a devastating force, with Muir’s power at tighthead setting the table for Matthews to pick up off the base and score. But Loughborough were still in the fight, Sweden’s Maja Mueller finishing off a well-worked maul.

Matthews powering over for a second followed by Hunt’s quick thinking near the line meant Gloucester-Hartpury had the bonus point after 28 minutes. Loughborough were understandably focused on stopping Matthews given her previous two tries, with the No 8 attracting enough attention to then put Heard over for another score off a set-piece. With the conversion, Emma Sing took her tally this season to 100 points. The only negative for the league leaders was a serious-looking injury to hooker Kelsey Jones, who was taken off on a stretcher with Gloucester leading 35-12 at half-time.

There was more dominance to follow from the visitors, with replacement hooker Neve Jones finishing off a maul, but Gloucester still had to work defensively, with Mia Venner’s cover tackle denying Bo Westcombe-Evans a try in the corner after Scarratt’s cross-field kick. And Loughborough’s maul continued to work well, with Mueller scoring a second try.

But in attack Gloucester exhausted their opponents, opening holes in Loughborough’s scrambling defence as Spanish replacement prop Laura Delgado broke clear to score from 20 metres out. Even the excellent tackles, such as Scarratt’s to stop a long-range break from Phillipa Hendy created by Heard and Hannah Jones, proved to be in vain, with second-row Stephanie Else the next to score as Gloucester’s forwards were just too powerful.

Cath O’Donnell’s try was fair reward for a spell of decent Loughborough pressure, with Venner a dangerous threat out wide. But a second maul try for Jones took Gloucester past the 60-point mark and confirmed their dominance, with Matthews deservedly named player of the match, just as she was in the recent win over France with England in the Women’s Six Nations.

Scoring sequence: 0-5 Heard try, 0-7 Sing con, 5-7 Keates try, 5-12 Matthews try, 5-14 Sing con, 10-14 Meuller try, 12-14 Scarratt con, 12-19 Matthews try, 12-21 Sing con, 12-26 Hunt try, 12-28 Sing con, 12-33 Heard try, 12-35 Sing con, 12-40 N Jones try, 17-40 Mueller try, 19-40 Scarratt con, 19-45 Delgado try, 19-47 Sing con, 19-52 Else try, 19-54 Sing con, 24-54 O’Donnell try, 26-54 Scarratt con, 26-59 N Jones try, 26-61 Sing con.

Loughborough Lightning: G Tasker (A Green 50); E Scantlebury, E Scarratt, C Morrall, B Westcombe-Evans; H Nelson, L Weaver (M Davey 54); A Williams (K Trevarthen 40), M Meuller (L Calladine 77), L Keates (I Curphey 40), E Wassell, C O’Donnell (A Duguid 70), R Malcolm (K Waudby 70), S Kabeya (S Williams 69), D Hibbert-Jones.

Gloucester-Hartpury: E Sing; M Venner (R Lund 57), H Jones, T Heard (M Hyett 57), P Hendy; L George, N Hunt (B Blackburn 49); M Carson (E Perry 49), K Jones (N Jones 22), M Muir (L Delgado 49), S Beckett (S Monaghan 49), S Else, Z Aldcroft, B Lewis, A Matthews (G Brock 57).

Referee: H Wood.