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New signing Hastings steers Gloucester to victory as Ted Hill sent off
By PA
Adam Hastings scored 16 points as Gloucester secured their first league win of the season with a 31-23 victory at Sixways over Worcester, who saw captain Ted Hill sent off.
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Hill was red carded in the 75th minute for a tip tackle on Gloucester replacement Lloyd Evans.
In rain-sodden conditions, Hastings, on his first Premiership start for the club, proved the difference with four penalties and two conversions. The Scottish international also created tries for Jason Woodward and Chris Harris with Ben Morgan also crossing for the visitors.
Worcester’s points came from tries from Kyle Hatherell and Sione Vailanu both of which Billy Searle converted. Searle also kicked a penalty with Owen Williams adding two more.
Gloucester made the quicker start to take an early lead through a penalty from Hastings but that was the only score of a featureless first 15 minutes.
Both sides were content to kick the ball at every opportunity and it came as no surprise that the next score came courtesy of another penalty, a second for Hastings.
The visitors continued to have the better of the argument as it took Worcester 23 minutes to enter the opposition 22 but they weren’t able to capitalise as first Ollie Lawrence threw a pass into touch then knocked on to allow Gloucester to relieve the pressure.
However, the visitors were penalised for goading their former captain, Willi Heinz, and up-stepped another former Gloucester man, Williams, to knock over the kick but this was soon nullified by two more from Hastings to leave his side with a 12-3 interval lead.
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Within two minutes of the restart, Warriors had reduced the arrears when Andrew Davidson was penalised for a side entry which allowed Williams to kick his second penalty.
Williams then attempted to kick a third but the outside half slipped as he made contact with the ball. The kick sailed wide and the Welsh international hobbled off with a leg injury to be replaced by Searle.
Searle picked up the next points with a straightforward penalty but the outside half blotted his copybook as he was sin-binned for a deliberate offside.
It proved crucial as the Cherry and Whites built up a head of steam and were rewarded with the first try of the game when Morgan finished off a driving line-out.
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Worcester replaced Heinz with Will Chudley and they should have collected the next score but Jamie Shillcock, their third place-kicker of the afternoon, fired wide from 35 metres.
The visitors then produced the moment of the match when a superbly judged cross-field kick from Hastings was collected by Jonny May before the wing fed Woodward, who raced over.
Searle returned from the sin-bin in time to see Hatherell force his way over but it was too little too late from Warriors with a late red card for Hill completing a miserable afternoon for them.
Gloucester sealed victory when another cross-field kick from Hastings saw Harris score but Warriors had the final say with a try from Vailanu.
