Sharples provides the cutting edge to deliver Gloucester recovery
The pace at which both teams play is enough to cause panic attacks
Gloucester bounced back from a disappointing defeat by Harlequins to secure a bonus-point triumph at the Ricoh Arena, ensuring Johan Ackermann’s side can prepare for the visit of Castres next weekend with their self-belief higher than it has been all season.
“It is a massive confidencebooster,” said No 8 Ben Morgan, who was part of a Gloucester team who controlled the game for long periods.
“We had not won here [away to Wasps] since 2011. It was a big one for us. We set ourselves challenges after last week and pretty much ticked those off.
“We knew that Wasps had a lot of threats in and around the contact area. We knew that to play the style of rugby we want to play, we would have to dominate that area. That was a big challenge to us, against a big Wasps forward pack, and we delivered our plan pretty much to the letter.”
Charlie Sharples scored two tries for Gloucester, Ben Vellacott and Lewis Ludlow the others while Danny Cipriani kicked three penalties and three conversions against his former club.
Sharples admitted that the Gloucester back line were grateful to the forwards for the platform they laid in a victory that put the visiting side fourth in the Gallagher Premiership table.
“It’s been a tough week, coming off the back of a loss at home,” Sharples said. “Last week we didn’t take opportunities to score points and score tries. This week we were patient when we needed to be and That said, it is a problem for a sport that wants to provide live and televised entertainment, that the only realistic way for all four teams to play against the elements was to truck the ball up at close quarters and clear their lines as effectively as they could.
With the penalty advantage they could be a little more expansive, but the temptation was always to hoof the ball and make territory. Yes, the weather is not always benign in the rest of the rugby world, but Super Rugby has at least two countries, South Africa and Australia, in which it rarely descends to the depths of what we saw here on Saturday. How much better, for players and spectators, would it be to see English rugby played in the summer, on good tracks and warm temperatures?
There should have been a number of direct match-ups that interested Jones, not least the battle between Chris Robshaw of Quins and Michael Rhodes of Sarries. Both had decent games but Robshaw’s work rate was staggering and he contributed mightily to a Quins tackle total that clinical when we needed to be. The forwards gave us a brilliant platform to attack on.
“They fronted up, they were extremely physical and controlled the game really well. When we get it right, we know we’re a very good side. It’s just doing it week in, week out, and doing it for 80 minutes.”
Wasps responded with tries from Dan Robson, Elliot Daly and Juan de Jongh with Billy Searle converting all three. But Dai Young, director of rugby, admitted: “We lacked real intensity and were very poor. We were a little better in the second half but there was no oomph to anything we did despite a rallying call at half-time when we made our feelings known.
“We didn’t build much pressure so Gloucester deserved their win as they were sharper than us.” was the principal reason for them almost snatching an unlikely win. It certainly earned them a bonus point against the one side in the Premiership least likely to grant such gifts.
What Jones did not see, from either back-row combatant, was a real suggestion that they could fill the still vacant England No7 shirt. To be fair to Jones, continuing injuries to several players who might challenge for this role are hampering any proposed solution. In the end, Jones is going to have to identify his first choices in each of the three roles. Billy Vunipola and Robshaw are likely to be at No8 and No6 respectively, with AN Other tagged for during the Six Nations. Whatever the combination, Jones has to stick with it and pray for the best.
And finally, Jones will have looked at Marler and will now understand what was behind his seemingly aberrant behaviour in the past. What would he give for a sport that could identify these types of mental health issues before they became overbearing?
The loss of lively scrum-half Dan Robson with an injury just before half-time did not help Wasps. Young said: “It looked nasty and he’s got his foot in a boot. He will have a scan in the next 24 hours but it doesn’t look great but hopefully he will be out for weeks rather than months.”
As for this week, Ackermann admitted Castres will present Gloucester with a huge challenge at Kingsholm on Sunday.
“They are a massive side and we’ll need a change of tactics but we’ve got a plan in place that we will look at this week,” Ackermann said.
“It’s fortunate we don’t have to travel and hopefully we’ll have three players back in contention with Tom Marshall, Val Rapavaruskin and Tom Savage all hoping to return from injury.”