Saracens, the best side on the road, damaged Gloucester's record of being the best home team in the land on Saturday night, coming from eight points down and distinctly second best at half-time to win with a try, five minutes from time, constructed by their young play-maker Owen Farrell.
The 20-year-old put in an inch-perfect grubber kick that Brad Barritt just got a hand on to complete a second-half revival by the champions. Before Saturday, it was two years and five days since Gloucester lost a league match at home, while Saracens had been unbeaten away from Watford since they visited Kingsholm last November – and their pedigree showed in the second half.
Coming back from suffering in the scrum and in the loose at the hands of the Gloucester forwards, and occasionally sliced wide open by the young backs, Saracens revealed the mean streak that won them awards last season, Farrell first kicking them back into the game before that clever little chip for Barritt.
Mind you, Gloucester have a bit of steel themselves and Tim Taylor showed the coolest of nerves to land two penalties after coming off the replacements' bench.
With Mike Tindall on the bench until the 54th minute, Gloucester had all seven of their World Cup returnees in the match-day 23, while Saracens continued the education of the player who could be directing England in 2015. Fly-half may be Farrell's chosen position, but so far this season he has also played inside-centre and on Saturdayhe stood one further from the action, while Charlie Hodgson was given the job of pulling the strings until the 67th minute.
Not that Farrell had time to brood. Opposite him was Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, Gloucester's player of the year last season and the IRB's bad boy of the tournament in New Zealand. Gloucester's coach, Bryan Redpath, virtually kept an open line to Auckland during the protracted disciplinary wranglings and it was always clear that the centre would be back on the Gloucester teamsheet as soon as legally possible.
A suspended sentence was never likely to douse the Samoan fires and Fuimaono-Sapolu was into the action from the start as Jim Hamilton squared up to Rhys Gill and another 19 players joined the dust-up.
On a more constructive note, Gloucester should have opened the scoring, but Jonny May's fine break was wasted when Olly Morgan's pass sailed over Charlie Sharples and into touch with no cover around. However, Morgan was about to make amends for his lack of precision, starting the move that lead to the first try, before scoring it.
He made 25 yards through some heavy Saracens traffic, linked with Henry Trinder and then ranged alongside the centre to take the scoring pass and dive through a couple of tackles to make the corner. Burns missed the kick, but popped over a couple of penalties, against one from Hodgson, and Gloucester went to the interval with an eight-point lead, probably scant reward for 40 minutes of solidity up front and adventure in the backs.
The second half started much as the first, this time Gill and his fellow loose- head Nick Wood heading for the sin-bin after a set-to, while Farrell nibbled away at the Gloucester lead with a couple of penalties before Taylor got two of his own after coming on for Burns. By then Tindall, watched by his wife Zara Phillips, was on and seeking a performance that will make his contract negotiations with Gloucester go a little easier.
