Mercer in the right place for Gloucester

GLOUCESTER'S and Hyde Jekyll season continued as they put their woeful Premiership form behind them to book a place in the last 16 of the Challenge Cup with a gutsy victory in Edinburgh.

- BRYN PALMER

The Cherry and Whites were indebted to a sizzling individual try from Wales flyer Louis Rees-Zammit and a sharp finish from No.8 Zach Mercer with six minutes left to prevail in a tight contest.

It puts George Skivington's side, who have lost a club record nine successive league matches, in pole position to clinch a home tie in the knockout stages after a third win from three, with a home game against Castres to come in their final Pool 3 encounter on Friday.

"It's a massive win for us," said the Gloucester boss. "This is a tough place to come against a very good Edinburgh team and the boys really had to dig it out.

"We have tried to hunker down on a few things that made us a good team over the past couple of years our defence, our set-piece, our kick-chase - and make ourselves hard to beat again.

"When you lose a few games, you can hesitate at key moments but coming here, we just said 'we need to attack this' and if we get a moment, go for it. That's obviously what Zammo did for his try."