Here are the latest rugby headlines on Sunday, June 5.
Rees-Zammit overcomes hamstring worry
Louis Rees-Zammit's try-scoring efforts to aid Gloucester to a resounding win over Saracens were not enough to secure a Premiership play-off spot.
Gloucester dismantled a second-string Saracens side 54-7 but missed out on a play-off position due to Northampton's win against Newcastle leaving the Cherry and Whites fifth in the table.
First-half tries from Jack Singleton, Jordy Reid and Santiago Carreras put Gloucester in control and a second from Singleton was followed by tries from Ollie Thorley and Santiago Socino. Max Malins dotted down a consolation for Sarries, while Rees-Zammit and Jack Clement also scored for the victors.
WalesOnline's sister title GloucestershireLive said of the Wales wing: "A solid last performance for the season from the Welshman, who was always probing and looking for chinks in the armour of the Saracens defensive line. Looked like he was hesitating a bit in the first half with him holding his hamstring after a little dart down line, however, it didn’t seem to bother him in the second half when he raced after a Jordy Reid grubber to score Gloucester’s seventh try."
Saracens, who will host Harlequins in the play-offs next weekend, rested England internationals like Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje, Jamie George, Billy Vunipola and Elliot Daly, and they fell to their second-heaviest defeat in Premiership history.
Saracens boss Mark McCall described Gloucester's improvement under George Skivington as "remarkable", saying: "They've got a real back-bone now which wasn't there before. They do the fundamentals very well, and they have got firepower to burn on the outside. They are going to be a real force to be reckoned with."
Reflecting on the result, Gloucester head coach Skivington said: "Sneaking in the play-offs would have been ideal, obviously, but I think in terms of what we could control I thought it was a really tight-knit performance. Sometimes when you get ahead, it is very easy to ease up, but out of respect for everyone who comes here week in, week out, it was important to stick to what we are about. There is a huge amount for us to work on. If we want to be a top team year after year, we've got to get better in a lot of areas."
Biggar 'outstanding'
Wales fly-half Dan Biggar and his Northampton Saints half-back colleague Alex Mitchell have been dubbed "outstanding" by Newcastle Falcons boss Dean Richards after Saints' 10-try 65-26 thriller on Saturday.
It was a crucial win for Saints as they booked their Gallagher Premiership play-off place, meaning they will now travel to Leicester Tigers for a semi-final showdown next Saturday.
Richards was left to rue several disciplinary issues as a yellow card for Greg Peterson and a red card for Sean Robinson hampered Newcastle’s victory bid in Northampton, but he heaped praise on their opponents.
"The red card didn’t help much at all – at the point, it was probably the turning point for us," Richards told the Northampton Chronicle.
“Having said that, I thought their nine and 10 were outstanding and when they lost their nine to a yellow card, that sort of hampered them quite a bit. On the day, I thought they probably were two or three scores better than us and when you’re chasing a game and you get within a few points, as we did do, sometimes you’ve got to tighten things up and we didn’t."
Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd knows his team cannot afford to play as openly in the Gallagher Premiership play-offs as they did against the Falcons. Despite the result, Boyd was unhappy with a poor start to the second half when Newcastle scored three quick tries to close the gap to 36-26 at one stage.
Boyd said: "That was clearly a long way from the script. The danger of a game like this, where you know that trying to win the game is so important to get that fourth spot, you invariably push the game too hard to try things.
"We knew that if we went forward and created platforms to work off, we'd probably get enough platforms to get a few tries, but we tried to force things too much. There's probably not much out of that you take into Leicester. That's going to be a completely different game.
"Stakes are high, obviously, but it will be a completely different game. To be fair, two months ago I think we were sitting eighth or ninth and a long way away from looking fourth. We talked about the fact we were probably playing knock-out football and we've managed to just sneak into that top four."
Leinster sail into URC semi-finals with record-breaking win over Glasgow
Leinster put their Heineken Champions Cup disappointment behind them to hammer Glasgow 76-14 in a brutally one-sided United Rugby Championship quarter-final at the RDS.
Richie Gray's sin-binning was punished with three tries, including Joe McCarthy's first for Leinster, as the Irish Shield winners galloped into a 26-7 half-time lead.
Dan Sheehan bagged a brace and the electric Jordan Larmour also crossed as Glasgow's initial seven-point advantage - thanks to Zander Fagerson's fourth-minute effort - was ominously washed away.
Leo Cullen's men finished with an eye-watering 12 tries - a new URC record for them - as Caelan Doris, Michael Ala'alatoa, Jamison Gibson-Park, Garry Ringrose, Larmour, Ciaran Frawley, Luke McGrath and Jimmy O'Brien completed the rout.
Their points haul of 76 was also the highest for a single match in the competition's history under its various guises, edging the 75 the Ospreys put past Benetton in Swansea in 2014.
Warriors' only consolation was replacement George Horne's converted score on the hour mark. Leinster march on to host the Vodacom Bulls in next week's semi-finals.
Edinburgh miss out on semi-final spot with defeat to Stormers
Edinburgh fell away in the second half as they suffered a 28-17 defeat to the Stormers in their United Rugby Championship quarter-final in Cape Town.
Warrick Gelant and Dave Cherry touched down as the sides went in level at 10-10 at half-time, struggling to be separated again following their 20-20 draw at the DAM Health Stadium earlier in the season.
However, Edinburgh had seen Magnus Bradbury sin-binned before the interval and Ruhan Nel's score with the visitors still down to 14 men early in the second half was followed 10 minutes later by an Evan Roos try as the hosts - who ended the regular season second to Leinster - pulled clear.
Henry Pyrgos responded for Edinburgh, but the Stormers defence held firm thereafter as 13 points from the boot of Manie Libbok helped keep the visitors at bay.
The result means the Stormers will host Ulster in next weekend's semi-finals, while Edinburgh follow Scottish rivals Glasgow - thumped at Leinster on Saturday - in exiting the competition.
