Billy Twelvetrees leads Gloucester past Exeter to Challenge Cup final

Gloucester’s hopes of taking something from a disappointing season were kept alive on Saturday when they beat the neighbours, Exeter, to book a place in the Challenge Cup final with a slice of brave captaincy which reflected the collective sense of adventure.

Leading by just one point with 13 minutes to go and extra time a real possibility, Gloucester’s captain, Billy Twelvetrees, twice opted to kick penalties to the corner rather than go for the safety of three points and, after plenty of banging on the Exeter door, the second-row Tom Savage finally burrowed his way over.

Add a penalty from the scrum-half Greig Laidlaw and suddenly Gloucester bathed in the relative luxury of an 11-point lead, which they needed. The replacement hooker Elvis Taoine set Gloucester nerves jangling briefly with Exeter’s only try of the night before the England wing Jonny May settled things three minutes from time. David Humphreys’ expensively assembled side will face Edinburgh at the Twickenham Stoop in three weeks, when a win would give them a chance of rejoining Europe’s top table via play-offs against Celtic Pro12 and then French league opposition.

On Saturday night, though, a win was enough to keep Humphreys’ first season at the club alive, rather than give the director of rugby the extended break he needs to plot Gloucester’s road ahead on the back of a first European final since Gloucester took this title back in 2006.

Given that all three meetings this season had been settled by three points at the most, Saturday night was expected to be tight, a suggestion that could have been blown out of the water within two minutes when Thomas Waldrom, aided by wing Ian Whitten, almost went the length of the field.

In fact the Exeter No8’s lung-bursting gallop finished 10 metres short, but the tone had been set with Gloucester happy to play their part, sweeping back upfield in the next move, where the home pack immediately shoved Exeter off their own ball. It was frantic stuff and something had to give. The surprise was that the first 20 minutes produced only a penalty apiece.

However, more was coming. A clever chip from Twelvetrees, came close to putting Charlie Sharples over in the corner and then the whole of Gloucester thought they had been cheated when May was flattened by Exeter’s converted centre Jack Nowell as he chased his own kick. But Gloucester were not to be denied, Bill Meakes following a third kick, this time from James Hook, and getting to it before the cover.

Laidlaw added the conversion and Hook knocked over a penalty from halfway against a second from Henry Slade and Gloucester went to the interval worth their seven-point lead, not that it was cast in stone.

Within a couple of minutes of the second half starting Meakes and Sharples got in each other’s way and although Dave Ewers lost control in scoring, referee John Lacey had already caught the Gloucester defence offside and Slade cut the lead to four points. Suddenly anything looked possible.

Gloucester’s Wales hooker, Richard Hibbard, barged his way up the middle before May and Sharples combined up the right, May ignoring the space he had created for his full-back by taking the ball into contact rather than give the pass. In return Slade and Exeter scrum‑half Will Chudley manufactured a bit of space in the Gloucester half, winning a fourth penalty and cutting the lead to a point – the winning margin in two of the previous three encounters – with 20 minutes left.