IF A home win against illustrious opposition is enough to satisfy you then Gloucester would have slept soundly last night.

They were never going to let this slip and a final late penalty from the fallible Ryan Lamb shut out Biarritz completely. But if you have your money on Gloucester to take the Heineken Cup itself then you will be far more anxious because they were never much more than mediocre in a match that wasn’t even that. And if Biarritz had come expecting to win then maybe they would have.

However, it was another occasion which fell well short of what everyone had the right to expect. Teams are now so utterly bewildered at the breakdown, with every country refereeing differently, that not only is no one committing to all-out attack but large periods of the game are descending into long and aimless kicking – in yesterday’s case, by Damien Traille and Lamb.

Gloucester are simply not their relentless selves, Lamb is playing without direction at fly-half and it was left to the indomitable Mike Tindall to beast the ball up to give his team some momentum.

Biarritz are rebuilding their team after the last lot died of inaction and with Traille and Romain Cabannes outstanding in midfield and a massive pack showing power as well as skill, then at least they could be a major handful in the return leg in the South of France.

The other major issue from the weekend concerns the appalling attitude of some French clubs to this great competition and also to the second-tier European Challenge Cup. For Montauban to go to Munster on Friday night with barely a single regular first-team player was a violation not only of the status of the competition but also of rugby itself, and who can blame Munster for finding so little motivation?

Good luck to Montauban because they could have won, but they should still be excluded from subsequent competition. The rabble fielded in the name of Toulon against Northampton on Thursday in the Challenge Cup also deserves an inquest.

The travails of Lamb were illustrated during what was probably Gloucester’s best attack of the first half. Gloucester put a bit of right-hand side on their scrum, clearing the way for Luke Narraway and Gareth Cooper to attack and Olly Barkley came steaming up through the middle. Gloucester drove the ball on through five phases but rather lamely, Lamb moved back into the pocket and missed with an attempt at a drop-goal.

It was as well for Gloucester that Barkley was finding the range with his left boot. He drilled over two fine penalties from far out on the left kicked his third on the half-hour, a penalty awarded when Jerome Thion offended ridiculously at the bottom of a ruck, almost crawling on hands and knees to get to the ball.

Gloucester always looked likely when they attacked Benjamin Thiery at full-back. Olly Morgan was sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes for taking out Thiery in the air but the whole business seemed to scar our man mentally. From then on, he let the ball bounce horrendously around instead of claiming it and then he put his own team in danger by throwing the ball carelessly out of a tackle.

From this attacking position, Gloucester scored their try after 39 minutes. Narraway poached a lineout on the Biarritz line and all he had to do was hold on to it to score. He did not. In fact, he clearly knocked on but for some reason, the referee allowed play to proceed, Lamb sent Tindall away and a long pass from Tindall to James Simpson-Daniel, who had held his depth and width cleverly, gave the wing enough space to cross in the left corner. Another beautiful strike by Barkley made it 16-3 to Gloucester at half-time.

But his mixed afternoon became, well, more mixed. Biarritz moved the ball from a lineout on the left, Cabannes held his run slightly then burst on to a pass by Julien Peyrelongue and blasted through an attempted tackle by Barkley. He ran on and sent Jean-Baptiste Gobelet over on the inside pass, the conversion by Peyrelongue made it 16-10, and at least 14 pairs of Gloucester eyes were fixed rather accusingly on Barkley.

To cap a rather difficult period, Barkley then missed with a penalty which would have taken Gloucester two scores ahead at a time when Biarritz were beginning to fancy their chances.

Barkley did make it 19-10 by kicking one penalty from two opportunities which came his way, but the match never rose to any sort of climax because of the reluctance by either side to really commit themselves to attack and the kicking ping-pong robbed the last vestiges of class and drama.

Star man: Mike Tindall (Gloucester)

Referee: P Allan (SRU)

Attendance:12,500

Yellow cards: Gloucester: Morgan (21min) Biarritz:Thion (30min)

Scorers: Gloucester:Try: Simpson-Daniel 39. Con: Barkley. Pens: Barkley (4), Lamb Biarritz:Try: Gobelet 30. Con: Peyrelongue. DG: Peyrelongue

GLOUCESTER: O Morgan; I Balshaw, M Tindall (capt), O Barkley (L Vainikolo 73min), J Simpson-Daniel; R Lamb, G Cooper (R Lawson 57min); A Dickinson, O Azam, C Nieto, M Bortolami, A Brown, P Buxton, L Narraway, A Strokosch

BIARRITZ: B Thiery (A Masi 58min); Z Ngwenya, R Cabannes, D Traille (P Bidabe 73min), J Gobelet; J Peyrelongue, F Cibray; F Barcella (E Coetzee 66min), B August (F Barcella 71min), M Moala (B Bourrust 53min), J Thion (capt), M Carizza (P Som 53min), M Lund, J Cronje, S Vahafolau