The Prem: Gloucester 48-0 Harlequins: Cherry and Whites thrash pointless Quins

Tries: Loader, Morgan, Trenholm, C. Atkinson, S. Atkinson, Englefield, Joseph, Barton Cons: Barton 4

Gloucester thrashed a limp Harlequins at Kingsholm to go to the top of the early Prem standings.

The Cherry and Whites ran in eight tries to make it two wins from two in the league and three on the bounce in all competitions.

Gloucester, who named three new signings in their starting line-up including Wales internationals Jac Morgan and Dewi Lake, completely outplayed their opponents in all facets of the match.

Visitors Quins, who handed a debut to England full-back George Furbank, struggled to get a handle on the game from the outset and remain bottom of the table without any points after failing to get on the scoreboard.

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A progressive move down the right gave Gloucester fly-half Charlie Atkinson – three days after he signed a new deal committing his long-term future with the club - the opportunity to find Ben Loader free on the left with a pinpoint kick, and the winger dotted down to open the scoring.

Harlequins, in their desperation to keep Gloucester out on their own try line, lost Will Evans to the sin bin and mere seconds later Wales flanker Morgan barged over in the left corner to extend Gloucester's lead.

On the stroke of half hour, Morgan's strong carry allowed Will Trenholm to force over Gloucester's third try from close range before George Barton slotted the conversio superbly from touch.

A spectacular 50:22 from scrum-half Caolan Englefield then put Gloucester in another great position and Charlie Atkinson broke a tackle to go over next to the sticks, as Barton kicked an easy extra two to give the hosts a 24-point advantage at half-time.

The interval did not change the momentum as two short passes saw Seb Atkinson race to the line and power over Gloucester's fifth of the evening and Quins' day was perhaps summed up best when Connor Slevin's poor restart failed to go 10 metres.

Gloucester ruthlessly made their visitors pay once more as with their next attack Will Joseph's outstanding run and offload allowed Englefield to dive over.

Joseph then grabbed the try his own performance deserved, diving in to the right of the posts to claim Gloucester's seventh try and third inside 12 minutes after half-time.

Another kick to the corner from Charlie Atkinson found Barton who juggled successfully and managed to extend over for Gloucester's eighth.

Joseph thought he had scored his second with the final act of the match to take Gloucester past 50 points, but his try was chalked off for a knock-on in the build up.

'Outstanding' and 'totally unacceptable' - reaction

Gloucester head coach George Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

"I expected us to be good in defence, I expected us to try and back up what we did last week but nilling a team is outstanding and that shows character more than anything.

"The work Joel Tomkins [defence coach] has done to get the boys in that mindset is great.

"The snapshot for me of the game is when we are winning at the end and we chase back as hard as we did to stop Quins getting a try - that's really the character we're looking for.

"All round pretty happy, I think there's a lot of things we can do better. We felt like that at half-time, that was what we talked about, and that's testament to the group - they're working unbelievably hard, theyre not satisfied."

Harlequins head coach Jason Gilmore said:

"The performance was totally unacceptable and you are not going to win a game with a 21-5 penalty count against you.

"We fed the referee, which meant we struggled for possession, and they were able to get easy field position and were able to launch 20 line-outs in the red zone to our five.

"At half-time we felt we could still do something but conceding two tries in the first four minutes after the interval took the wind out of our sails.

"That put the result beyond doubt and we spun out of control afterwards as we tried to chase the game."

Gloucester: Barton; Thorley, Joseph, S. Atkinson, Loader; C. Atkinson, Englefield; Rapava-Ruskin, Lake (capt), Fasogbon, Kleyn, Clark, Thomas, Morgan, Trenholm.

Replacements: Innard, Bleuler, C. Knight, Clement, Ludlow, Robson, W. Knight, Denny.

Harlequins: Furbank; Anderson, Beard, Bradley, Murley (capt); Slevin, Porter; Hobson, Walker, Delgado, Dun, Browne, Kenningham, Evans, Carr.

Replacements: Riley, Wenger, Kerrod, Petti, Cunningham-South, Friday, Lang, Green.