Unbeaten Gloucester-Hartpury came from behind to snatch a dramatic win over Saracens and return to the top of the Premiership Women’s Rugby table.<\/p>\n
Alex Matthews grabbed a hat-trick, with the number eight’s third try in the closing stages clinching a bonus point for the defending champions at the Stone X Stadium.<\/p>\n
Saracens were a player down for the last seven minutes after Marlie Packer was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on.<\/p>\n
With four matches of their league campaign remaining, Gloucester’s victory put them four points clear of second-placed Saracens – who have played a game more – and secured home advantage in the semi-finals at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
The hosts led 14-12 at the break following tries from Liv Apps and Emma Hardy, but could only add a Zoe Harrison penalty after the break despite playing with a strong breeze at their backs.<\/p>\n
Apps raced in under the posts early on, but the scrum-half was substituted in the first half following a cut to the head.<\/p>\n
Hardy finished off a superb Sarries move that started in their own half to put them ahead again, after Matthews had picked up off a scrum for the first of her treble.<\/p>\n
Her second try was a repeat of her first, but her side trailed after Lleucu George missed her drop-kick conversion attempt, the ball having been blown off the kicking tee with the shot clock winding down.<\/p>\n
Hannah Dallavalle’s try near the corner after 64 minutes put Gloucester ahead for the first time, before a Zoe Harrison penalty levelled the game at 17-17.<\/p>\n
But Packer’s error, which she immediately acknowledged, put Saracens under mounting pressure and Matthews barged over from a ruck at close range for the try that secured a bonus point for the three-time champions.<\/p>\n
Saracens were not done, though, and were threatening the try-line when Gloucester-Hartpury stole their throw in their own 22 with 80 minutes up on the clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unbeaten Gloucester-Hartpury came from behind to snatch a dramatic win over Saracens and return to the top of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-542308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}