Half-time: Harlequins 7 Gloucester 6. Gloucester trailed by a point at the break of this Guinness Premiership clash at the Twickenham Stoop this afternoon.

New Zealand fly-half Nick Evans was off-target with a fifth-minute penalty but two minutes later he opened the scoring with a great individual try.

From halfway, he spotted a gap in the visitors' defence and escaped the clutches of Rory Lawson before easing through a woefully attempted tackle by Gloucester's last line of defence, Iain Balshaw, to touch down. Evans converted.

Centre Olly Barkley replied with a penalty on 15 minutes but the Cherry and Whites would have been ahead had it not for an unlucky bounce of the ball three minutes later.

Chasing a Barkley punt for touch that stayed infield, wing James Simpson-Daniel and centre Henry Trinder were unable to collect on halfway with no Quins defenders between them and the try-line.

Evans missed his second penalty of the afternoon on 25 minutes before Barkley landed three points with a kick directly in-front of the Quins posts five minutes later to reduce the home side's advantage to a point.

Gloucester did well to withstand a late Quins rally, the pack superbly winning a penalty from a scrum before Barkley kicked the ball out to end the first 40 minutes.

Harlequins: M Brown; D Strettle, G Tiesi, J Turner-Hall, T Williams; N Evans, A Gomarsall; C Jones, G Botha, M Ross, O Kohn, G Robson, C Robshaw, W Skinner (capt), T Guest. A Croall, M Lambert, J Evans, N McMillan, J Poluleuligaga, C Malone, U Monye.

Gloucester: I Balshaw; C Sharlpes, H Trinder, O Barkley, J Simpson-Daniel; C Spencer, R Lawson; N Wood, A Titterell, G Somerville, M Bortolami, A Brown, L Narraway, A Hazell, G Delve (capt). O Azam, A Dickinson, A Eustace, A Satala, R Lamb, A Allen, M Foster.