Hooker Socino scored a hat-trick of tries to help Gloucester set up a Round of 16 tie at home to Northampton Saints on Saturday.

But the Argentina international played down his own role in the tries, and pointed to the power of Gloucester’s driving maul.

He said: “I’m just the one grounding the ball. It's the work of eight on the night - plus eight during the week - because we work really hard on that.

“That's the results you get when you work really hard.

“We know it’s a great weapon for us. We use it and we trust it. It has been paying off the whole season. Hopefully, we’ll get a few more.”

Unable to stop smiling afterwards, Socino added: “That was how much it meant to us. We stuck to the plan, trusted the process and it paid off.”

Head coach George Skivington was similarly effusive about Gloucester’s mauling, but said they were working hard at other attacking tactics.

“We know our maul is very, very good,” he said.

“We've scored more tries across the Premiership and the whole of Europe than anybody, so we know it’s a superpower.

“Do we want that to be the one avenue of our game? Of course not.

“We are working really hard in the background to build our game and grow and try and get the connections right.

“We are not happy with where we are. We have got a long way to go, but we have got a superpower, so if we need to go to it, we will.

Skivington added: “I thought Santi was outstanding tonight, over the ball, at the maul, at the lineout, in the scrum. He was round the park smashing people.

“He is a brilliant player, he is a brilliant bloke.

“That group are really growing nicely to do something special. They are a really tight unit.”

Reflecting further on the match, Skivington said: “It had everything. It was a real physical battle and the support was outstanding tonight.

“It was as heated as it gets, a proper Anglo-Welsh derby.

“When they scored that try just before half-time, we went in with our tails between our legs.

“The pleasing thing for me was that they came out in the second half and showed their grit.”

Santiago Socino said hard work is paying off as Gloucester Rugby’s maul did the damage in their 26-21 EPCR Challenge Cup victory over Dragons.