Harlequins clearly wanted to turn their winning run to a sequence of six, but Gloucester had other ideas and you have to wonder where it came from.
Winning 29-7 away from home is pretty impressive against selling-platers, but this was against thoroughbreds from West London.
In the process the Cherry and Whites got a bonus point for four tries and really looked well and truly up for the match.
No doubt the defeat at Bristol stung and there was a positive response that Quins could not handle.
The next stage in the side’s progress and development is to produce a stellar performance because they did last time out – and not because of the stimulus of anger at doing relatively badly in the previous game.
The team is now well poised for the play-offs and are within touching distance of Harlequins, who are third.
But this elevated position in the rarefied atmosphere at altitude is both commendable yet precarious.
Every man and his dog wants to take a pop at you and there has to be a mentality that anything can be swatted away if the attitude is right.
Top Gloucester Rugby stories
Most teams can scrap when they are taking on bigger sides, but the very best perform because they are at the top of their game. Gloucester are getting there.
The England v Scotland game is looming large and ugly. There has been baggage around this fixture since what seems like forever and all sorts of theories have been put forward as to why this is.
Maggie Thatcher and the poll tax was one unlikely source of the festering malevolence, but this seems to forget that the two countries have been embroiled in friction since the year dot.
Football has its own history of sorry tales and, as yet, the Twickenham posts have not been destroyed by the kilted hordes. But it is all kicking off again and all we seem to hear is who did what last time out.
England are bigger and better than such petty squabbles and might do best to follow my (sadly departed) grandmother’s advice that “a wise heed has a shut mooth!”
It is looking likely that England will dispatch Scotland with an awesome array of power and Ireland could easily topple Wales to hand the championship to everybody’s least favourite team – England.
It would be wonderful if that were to happen then the men with the red rose could say nothing and enjoy the moment.
Gloucester’s victory was the highlight of a rugby-filled weekend, but there was one individual effort that restores one’s faith in the game and what it is all about.
Wales, once the exponents of skill and dashing, twinkling feet, are every bit as stodgy and predictable as all the rest in the Siix Nations. But hope springs eternal and Josh Adams held out hope for skill over brute force.
Adams has two serious counts against him; he is Welsh and plays for rivals Worcester. He scored a sumptuous solo try that should be played over and over to other players at all levels.
He had Blair Kinghorn, the Scottish full back ahead of him, and did not go for the Maori sidestep. Instead he ran straight and very quickly while moving his body weight from left to right and back again.
It looked stuttery but it was deadly as Kinghorn was mesmerised by what looked remarkably like a double sidestep – but at pace and in a dead straight line.
There are not too many quick answers to the problem that Adams was posing, but the Scot probably chose the wrong option by staying back and watching. The better bet might have been to get at the ball carrier more quickly so that his options were closed down. He who hesitates is lost?
So now to Twickenham, with the powerful England having a few matters to clear up – not least the result the last time out in Scotland.
But we can just hope that the poll tax, various historic battles and the perception of toffee-nosed Englishmen are all banished. But don’t build your hopes up!
