Gloucester head coach George Skivington hailed his side’s resilience and character after seeing them triumph 23-5 over Bath in a pulsating encounter to remain top of the Gallagher Prem table.

A win was a remarkable achievement in the circumstances as they overcame a first-half battering from their opponents, who were held up over the line on at least three occasions.

Furthermore Gloucester conceded 22 penalties and received yellow cards for Ollie Thorley, Ciaran Knight and Will Joseph but still finished the stronger to record their first win over Bath at Kingsholm since 2022.

Freddie Thomas and Max Llewellyn scored Gloucester’s tries with George Barton converting both and adding three penalties, whereas a try from Kepueli Tuipulotu was Bath’s sole response.

Skivington said: “Everything that could go against us tonight did as we were pinged off the park and went down to 13 men so we were just hanging in there.

“Bath had opportunity after opportunity to score but despite having everything thrown at us, they never let it faze them and we never looked like throwing the towel in.

“Bath at home is the number one fixture for our fans and we want to make Kingsholm a fortress and make sure everyone who bought a ticket wants to buy another one.

“Ultimately we want to play attacking rugby and the lads stayed brave tonight. It may not have been the right decision at the end but Will Joseph rolled the dice to create Max Llewellyn’s try.

“However it wasn’t our best performance as we weren’t accurate enough but the resilience and character of the squad got us over the line.”

For Bath it was a third defeat on the bounce having been beaten convincingly by Northampton and Montpellier in their previous fixtures, so 126 points have been conceded during that time.

However they will wonder how they failed to score in the first half as their pack secured enough possession to have won three games.

To complete their miserable night they lost internationals, Santi Carreras and Guy Pepper to injuries.

Bath’s Director of Rugby, Johann van Graan, said: “Both Santi and Guy will have scans so it’s too early to assess but in Santi’s case I’d be amazed if it wasn’t bad news.

“I’m frustrated as we created so many opportunities but didn’t finish them and if you don’t finish them you can’t build pressure.

“The big moment of the game came early in the second half when we were only 9-5 down and had a try disallowed.

“Our plans to get over the line are working but we’ll have to work harder at how we get the ball to the floor.

“I’m still pretty calm as parts of our game are really going well but we need to score tries to build pressure.”