Gloucester 23-5 Bath at Kingsholm in Premiership on 23 October 2026
Gloucester beat Bath 23-5 at Kingsholm in the Premiership on 23 October 2026, securing their first league victory over Bath at Kingsholm since April 2022 with a defensive performance that underpinned the result. Two tries from Freddie Thomas and Max Llewellyn, plus three penalties and two conversions from George Barton, produced the 23 points for the hosts.
Gloucester led 9-5 at half-time after repelling prolonged Bath pressure despite being reduced to 13 men for periods of the first half, and their win was described by head coach George Skivington as the club's biggest game of the season. Skivington linked the result to an earlier draw against holders Bordeaux in the Champions Cup seven days earlier and noted the victory came despite the absences of captain Dewi Lake and centre Seb Atkinson through injury. The scoreline and performance were presented in the report as confirmation that Gloucester sit at the top of the Premiership at this early stage of the campaign.
Bath dominated territory in the opening half, enjoying 97% possession for a 10-minute spell, and repeatedly threatened the tryline without success; the TMO intervened to disallow three Bath tries for a Tuipulotu double movement, Tyler Offiah touching the ball into touch before he passed to Louie Hennessey, and Enoch Opoku-Gyamfi dropping the ball over the line. Gloucester absorbed that pressure while conceding penalties that led to two sin-bin offences in the first half — Ollie Thorley (21) and Ciaran Knight (28) — but the home defence completed 113 first-half tackles.
When Gloucester could clear and counter, George Barton converted opportunities into points, slotting three successive penalties to move the hosts 9-0 ahead before Kepu Tuipulotu scored from a driving maul just before the break to make it 9-5. Tuipulotu's try was Bath's only score of the night.
Early in the second half Bath were again held up over the line and then saw Gloucester receive a yellow card when Will Joseph was sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on, but Bath could not take advantage. Gloucester used their first sustained possession in Bath's 22 of the half to go to the corner and drive over, Freddie Thomas barging through to score under the posts, with Barton converting.
Max Llewellyn finished the scoring for Gloucester by touching down with two minutes remaining to seal the 23-5 victory, while a Finn Russell mis-kick to touch was noted as a further symptom of Bath's night. Bath suffered additional injury blows during the match, with full-back Santiago Carreras helped from the field with what was described as a serious-looking injury and flanker Guy Pepper also going off injured.
Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: "Everything that could have got thrown against the boys did, we were getting pinged off the park and it felt like the boys couldn't quite win the referee over - that happens in games sometimes. "I thought the boys' character and the attritional nature of that game, and the fact that no one took a backwards step or threw the towel in, was unbelievable. "The defensive performance and the connectivity against the odds was testament to the boys." Bath head of rugby Johann van Graan said: "You can't build pressure if you don't finish your opportunities. We got in there loads of times. The big moment is just after half-time, the score's 9-5, we get the post penalty and the try is not allowed, so frustration. "The fact that we are over the tryline means the plan to get there is working, we've got to work harder as a group to make sure we actually get the ball on the floor." On Carreras' injury he added: "He's got to go for a scan, I'd be amazed if that's not really bad news, which is gutting for him."
Teams and match details: Tries: Thomas, Llewellyn. Cons: Barton 2. Pens: Barton 3. Gloucester: Barton; Thorley, Joseph, Llewellyn, W Knight; C Atkinson, Englefield; Rapava Ruskin, Blake, C Knight, Kleyn, Clark, Thomas, Morgan (capt), Clement. Replacements: Innard, Bleuler, Fasogbon, Trenholm, Ludlow, Robson, M Knight, Redshaw. Sin-bin: Thorley (21), C Knight (28), Joseph (46). Bath: Carreras; Hennessey, Lawrence, Redpath, Offiah; Russell, Spencer (capt); Obano, Tuipulotu, Griffin, Opoku-Gyamfi, Ewels, Bayliss, Pepper, Reid. Replacements: Frost, Kirk, Verden, Molony, Hill, Carr-Smith, Donoghue, Green.
The victory returned Gloucester to the top of the Premiership early in the campaign and ended a run of more than four and a half years without a league win over Bath at Kingsholm; for Bath it was their third defeat in a row in all competitions and represented their lowest haul of Premiership points under Johann van Graan, while Carreras faces a scan for a likely serious knee injury.
