GLOUCESTER saved themselves the embarrassment of being beaten at home in this EDF Energy Cup tie by a Dragons side showing eight changes from the one that lost narrowly to Bath in the Heineken Cup last weekend. However, if England are entertaining the idea of a midfield combination in the autumn Internationals that features Olly Barkley and Mike Tindall, then on the evidence of their defensive displays this weekend and last they will be courting disaster.

Tindall, whose defence used to be one of his strong suits, will have to be promoted from the Saxons squad for that to happen, but, irrespective of this scrambled bonus-point win, Gloucester fans must be beginning to wonder whether they are getting a decent return on all the money shelled out on bringing the former Bath pair to Kingsholm. Afterwards, Dean Ryan said that both players had held their hands up to defensive failings in Cardiff last weekend, but the Gloucester coach was dismayed by a repeat performance which saw a young Dragons side score two first-half tries by going straight for Gloucester’s soft centre. “It’s time to help them, and both players have been honest,” added Ryan. “But it’s happened for the second week, and that does not make things easy.” Ryan’s Dragons counterpart Paul Turner admitted that giving the England pair grief was part of a plan his side had hatched after seeing the damage Cardiff inflicted. “We have been targeting them all week, and, as the tries showed, it worked.”

Gloucester drew first blood when they made the most of the new law that has defences five metres back at the scrum, Alasdair Strokosch and Rory Lawson linking with Willie Walker on the open side, and the fly-half’s inside pass sending Lesley Vainikolo steaming through.

However, the Dragons responded when Rhodri Gomer-Davies made a break, shook off Tindall, who went too high, and slipped the ball inside for the lively Richard Fussell to reduce Gloucester’s lead to 7-5.

The Dragons kept coming and a counter-attack, sparked by Fussell and rescued by a grubber kick from veteran prop Adam Black, saw Iain Balshaw trapped and Lawson charged down in goal, to force an attacking five-metre scrum. When Wayne Evans went to the open side to set up a ruck, the ball was passed from Connor to Grant Webb and the No 8 burst through the gap between Barkley and Tindallto score. Shaun Connor converted for a 12-7 lead.

Gloucester hit back with a Scott Lawson try when the hooker was given a free run up the tramline from a lineout, but Barkley missed the touchline conversion to leave the half-time score at 12-12.

After the break, Connor kicked a penalty to push the Dragons out to 15-12 and had Gloucester backpeddling with clever kicks in behind their back three. However, when Black was yellow-carded for coming in at the side of a ruck, Gloucester were thrown a lifeline - and their runners grabbed it with both hands. Balshaw broke up the middle, testing the tiring Dragons defence, and Dave Lewis and Barkley combined to give Vainikolo a sniff of the line. “The Volcano” bumped the otherwise solid Ashley Smith out of the way for his second.

With 13 minutes remaining Balshaw skipped through for the bonus-point try and Barkley’s late penalty saw Gloucester lead 25-15, before the never-say-die Dragons replied with a Jason Tovey try in the last minute.

Turner, who has assembled his squad on a shoestring budget, felt his side were short-changed - “I don’t think Gloucester won it, we lost it” - but they were the moral victors against a team which is much less than the sum of its expensively assembled parts.

Star man: Shaun Connor (Dragons)

Scorers: Gloucester: Tries:Vainikolo 17, 64, S Lawson 33, Balshaw 67Con:Barkley Pen: Barkley. Dragons: Tries:Fussell 19, Webb 28, Tovey 79 Con: Connor Pen:Connor Yellow cards: Gloucester: Satala (71min) Dragons: Black (61min)

Referee: N Owens (WRU) Attendance: 8,057

GLOUCESTER: I Balshaw; M Foster, M Tindall (capt), O Barkley, L Vainikolo; W Walker (J Adams 58min), R Lawson (D Lewis 28min); A Dickinson (A Satala 66min), S Lawson (A Titterrell 52min), C Nieto (J Forster ht), A Eustace, M Bortolami, P Buxton, A Strokosch, A Hazell

DRAGONS: P Dollman; T Selley, R Gomer-Davies (J Tovey 21min), A Smith (capt), R Fussell; S Connor, W Evans (T Isaacs 62min); A Black (G Maule 73min), S Jones (T Willis 58min), R Thomas, A Jones (A Murphy 61min), A Hall, D Lydiate, G Webb (J Bearman 59min), R Parks (J Ringer 51min)