Garvey grand entrance puts Gloucester in pole position

Gloucester 45 Bristol 18

"Why would anyone want to leave Gloucester at the moment?" Nigel Melville asked plaintively after the six-try thumping which confirmed his club's best start to a league season. Given that the director of rugby's question was aimed at Patrice Collazo, the prop who last Friday departed Kingsholm for Toulouse, there was little chance of an answer. Logic suggests that Gloucester's owner, Tom Walkinshaw, is reining in the spending on a too-large squad, but logic and sport do not always go together.

Collazo's permanent French leave does not suit Melville and his assistant, Dean Ryan, but it has not left them noticeably light of props. Nor if Daren O'Leary or Chris Catling get on their bikes this week, as the rumour mill suggests, does there look to be any particular problem in the back three. The latest to roll off the academy production line, 19-year-old Marcel Garvey, ran in three tries – two of them absolute belters – on his first start in front of The Shed. And the Cherry and Whites are on top of the Premiership. Some crisis.

Ken Nottage, Gloucester's managing director, insisted there was no connection between Walkinshaw's Arrows Formula One motor racing team hitting the buffer and the financial restraints which made Toulouse's final offer for Collazo too good to refuse.

"I've been here three years," said Nottage. "Turnover has increased from £1.8m to £5m and season ticket sales are up from 1,400 to 5,000. It's only normal to restructure the business from time to time, and Nigel Melville is consolidating his team in preparation for Europe."

Melville's body language in the post-match talk-in suggested that not all the off-field moves have his approval, but four wins out of four, and happy crowds thronging Kingsholm, are problems most clubs would kill for. Bristol, for example, could have done without losing their captain, Ross Beattie, and their new All Black recruit, Daryl Gibson, to injury inside the first 20 minutes.

It was Walkinshaw, remember, who lured Melville from Wasps last March and Ryan from Bristol in the summer. There is still an element of the team that Philippe Saint-André built, but a good team it certainly is.

Garvey's pyrotechnics understandably won last season's England Under-19 wing the man of the match award. Even more telling was a lung-bursting sequence in the last quarter. Bristol went through 11 phases with barely a dent made in Gloucester's defence. Then a turnover in the home 22 and James Forrester, Henry Paul, Terry Fanolua and Thinus Delport swept upfield for a try at the left corner by Junior Paramore. Splendid stuff and shades of Leicester at their best.

With Bath away and Saracens at home to come in the next fortnight, perhaps Walkinshaw's best bet would be to put money on Gloucester making it a perfect six before the Heineken Cup takes over.

Gloucester: Tries Garvey 3, Boer, Paramore, Mercier; Conversions Mercier 3; Penalties Mercier 3. Bristol: Tries Daniel, Archer; Conversion Contepomi; Penalties Contepomi 2.

Gloucester: H Paul; M Garvey, T Fanolua (T Beim, 79), R Todd, T Delport (J Simpson-Daniel, 78); L Mercier, A Gomarsall; T Woodman (A Deacon, 77), C Fortey (O Azam, 29-36, 58), P Vickery (capt), R Fidler (E Pearce, 69), M Cornwell, J Boer, J Paramore (P Buxton, 78), J Forrester.

Bristol: J Williams (S Drahm, 69); B Daniel, D Rees, D Gibson (M Shaw, 19), P Christophers; F Contepomi, A Pichot; D Crompton (E Bergamaschi, 55), N McCarthy (S Nelson, 78), J White, G Archer, A Brown (A Sheridan, 55), B Sturnham, R Beattie (capt; M Salter, 5), M Lipman.

Referee: T Spreadbury (Somerset).