Rugby round-up: Gloucester's LV Cup is half full

Yesterday's matches in the LV Cup – a competition in which the Leicester director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, said his team's defeat by Bath on Friday was "meaningless" – produced wins for Northampton and Gloucester.

Most coaches' main complaint about the LV Cup renders Cockerill's remark about meaninglessness, well, meaningless – it is that the event offers a Heineken Cup place to the winners (if they are English), and is thus disproportionately meaningful. Some clubs are without more internationals than others when LV games are played and the curious competition structure, with clubs drawn in pools of four but not playing anyone in their own pool, means that unsuccessful teams can prosper. Newcastle, leading Pool One with one win in three matches, are an example.

Yesterday, Gloucester scored seven tries and beat London Irish 41-8 at Kingsholm. They have won Pool Three, with three wins out of four. Another Pool Three team, Northampton, came from behind to beat Leeds, of Pool Two, 38-24. The Saints scored six tries and Leeds scored four. Five matches today will decide the other three semi-finalists.

The build-up – or countdown, if you prefer – to the southern-hemisphere season continued yesterday, with the Melbourne Rebels losing for the first time, 19-14 to the Crusaders. The Kiwi team did not field Richie McCaw, Sonny Bill Williams or Dan Carter but Danny Cipriani did play for the Rebels.

In Wellington, the host country beat England 29-14 in the final of the New Zealand Sevens.