Luck holds in Gloucester's Italian job

If fate has dealt him a few cruel hands in the English Premiership of late, then the wheel of fortune has turned full circle to ensure Leicester are not the only English club to negotiate the group stage.

First there was the last-minute penalty try with which they scrambled a draw against Colomiers at home, then the biggest drop goal accident since its invention to beat Llanelli, and now this.

Gloucester stumbled through in the end 38-29, a score which disguised a multitude of sins.

Roma, without a point to show for their five previous ties, played almost all the rugby, out-scoring their opponents by four tries to two, an achievement made all the more staggering by the fact that their largely part-time squad had been stripped of six first-team players.

A cosy venue located off the Viale Cristoforo Colombo, where the Inter Milan football team had trained in the morning alongside their rugby compatriots, proved to be nothing of the sort. For half an hour or so, Gloucester lost their way so completely that Christopher Columbus would have been ashamed of them.

Having done their unwitting worst to find every banana skin in the locality, Saint-Andre's lot were in some brief danger of leaving the eternal city in eternal embarrassment. And all that after starting at the rate of a point-a-minute to lead 25-3 almost without breaking sweat.

Simon Mannix landed his first penalty hat-trick in eight minutes, then took 60 seconds fewer to land his second treble. What followed for much of a balmy afternoon must have left Saint-Andre wondering whether his team had gone barmy.

In all his dealings with Walkinshaw, Saint-Andre has made it abundantly clear that, unlike most of his Premiership counterparts, his livelihood does not depend on the job, not with his multifarious business interests back in Montferrand.

'Rugby is my passion, especially Gloucester rugby,' he said. 'I don't need it to eat and drink and pay the mortgage. Coaching in England is incredible, a wonderful experience because I learn something different every day. All I want is success for Gloucester.'

What Roma's assortment of dentists, mechanics and architects did to his team between the 37th and 71st minutes left him mightily grateful just to have survived and mightily annoyed, no doubt, that his team let it happen.

When full back Alfredo de Angelis crossed for the third Roma try, Gloucester were holding on at 28-24 and in a serious bit of bother until Mannix relieved their anxiety with his eighth penalty.

Their backs, having created next to nothing all match, left it to the last minute of normal time to engineer an exclusively southern hemisphere try, the Samoan Terry Fanolua making the initial break for Mannix, a Kiwi, to draw the last man and send World Cup-winning Wallaby Jason Little cruising over.

Roma, with their American lock Luke Gross living up to his name, had the last word, inside centre Giovanni Raineri making the final score for his left wing, Luca Corona.

Gloucester, on this form, will hardly cause Cardiff any loss of sleep but they won't care about that in The Shed. Gloucester at Kingsholm will be a different proposition, especially against Welsh opponents, but on their Roman form they will be going only one way ... out.