Injury issues may scupper Gloucester’s bid for glory
BRENDAN GALLAGHER sets the scene for next week’s Anglo-Welsh finale of the Challenge Cup
As somebody once said – and it wasn’t John Lennon who got there first by the way, it oriiginally appeared in an edition of Readers
Digest in January 1957 – life is what happens when you are busy making other plans which on occasions seems strangely applicable to Gloucester Rugby.
For a decade or more – in fact pretty much since professional rugby really got underway – we have been waiting for a full bore Gloucester revival and an avalanche of Premiership and Heineken Cup finals that a club of their stature should surely have on their honours board by now.
Instead what we mostly got, while Gloucester were busy making those other grandiose plans, was three appearances in the European Challenge Cup final and two titles. On Friday they contest a fourth final, against Cardiff, when a win would see them draw level with Harlequins with three Challenge Cup triumphs.
The competition has been undeniably good to Gloucester and vice versa. Yes, in many ways it’s a consolation prize of a competition but it still provides the opportunity for hungry players to chase silverware and enable harassed directors of rugby and coaches to argue that the team and club are making progress.
Of course, if push came to shove, Gloucester would much rather be playing in the Champions Cup but it’s not in their DNA – even in non-vintage seasons – to give anything less than 100 per cent in any game and that has made them doughty campaigners in the Challenge Cup. They and others with a similar mindset bring integrity to a competition of variable quality although at the business end – the knock-out stages – it has become very competitive indeed as we will see in Bilbao on Friday.
This season, in many ways, is typical of much that has gone before with coach Johan Ackermann looking for a win that could be seen as validation for the work he and his coaches are doing. Gloucester have been decent this season and in patches very good with an attacking fluency we haven’t seen since the days when James Simpson-Daniel was Gloucester’s goto man, but the bottom line is that they are still essentially a mid-table team that seem to lack the killer instinct come the big games .
A win over Cardiff is possibly the hurdle that needs to be cleared if Gloucester are to move onto the next level and it has worked for teams like Sale, Harlequins and, to a certain extent, Toulon, who followed a losing appearance in the Challenge Cup final with three straight wins in the Champions Cup final. These campaigns can be launching pads to greater things.
So far though, that hasn’t proved the case for Gloucester who won it in both 2006 and 2015.Those victories provided short term satisfaction but did not trigger something bigger and better.
As for this final it’s almost too close to call. Gloucester have a few significant injury problems, not least the absence of their inspirational scrumhalf and captain Willie Heinz. The Kiwi, at his best, adds a tempo to the game that brings out the best in his talented back line and although former England U20 captain Callum Braley is a talented player he is much more orthodox and lacks the snap and dynamism that Heinz brings in attack.
Gloucester have also been without their Welsh fly-half Owen Williams, who has a habit of chipping in with big plays and important goals, although the talented Billy Burns is an able deputy. In an ideal world Ackermann would like to have these two experienced campaigners available along with Richard Hibbard who has also been out of action.
Ackermann says: “I doubt if one of those players will get over the line medically for clearance so at the moment we work on the permutation that they’re out but there’s still a week to go so hopefully one of them or both will be available.
“Not one of those players have trained in the last couple of weeks so do you bring somebody in after a long period of injury in a week like a final with a short turnaround or do you play with the players available?”
That’s the big question and you suspect Ackermann will leave those calls as late as possible. The other selection issues revolve around the back row where Glos have a phalanx of talented players in great form – who to leave out or start on the bench is the problem there – while in the backs you feel they are not getting the best out of Henry Trinder by banishing him to the wing. Trinder is a perfectly competent wing, you get the feeling he could play anywhere behind the scrum, but he is a brilliant and potentially match-winning centre and that is where he must play. A big performance there might also give Eddie Jones a timely nudge in terms of a tour place to South Africa this summer. Cardiff, meanwhile, are also looking for something tangible after a PRO14 season almost identical to Gloucester’s Premiership campaign – mid table competence and hints of better days ahead but in the cold light of day nothing more substantial than that. In Europe though they have been a different beast, having to qualify from the toughest pool and doing that in
some style. To achieve road wins in both Toulouse and Lyon was exceptional and they continued that impressive form against French opposition in the semi-finals. Their 16-10 win over a strong and well motivated Pau side was a quality performance – Pau, remember, did the double over Gloucester in their Pool.
“This group has really gelled well over the last two years, we have stayed tight and it’s starting to show now,” says Gareth Anscombe, left, who has been a stand-out in Cardiff ’s journey to the final. “This team hasn’t really changed in the last three years, we’ve developed a pretty good leadership group and with that and the style we have been pushing, we’re comfortable with the ball and our defence has gone from strength to strength.
“You have to give a lot of credit to Richard Hodges and Shaun Edwards for the work they have done and the boys have really bought into it. We’re certainly not the finished article and we have to keep improving, but our defence is keeping us in games whereas in the past we just tried to score more points than the opposition.”
As with Gloucester, a big part of Cardiff ’s strength this season has been their back row with the awe-inspiring power of Nick Williams, the excellence of Josh Navidi – which Wales have perhaps belatedly recognised – and the uncanny ball poaching ability of Ellis Jenkins which was well to the fore in the semi-final. Added to that trio should be the name of back up Olly Robinson – son of Andy – who has been absolutely outstanding off the bench. Collectively they are a formidable unit.
The club have been galvanised by the prospect of competing in their second final – they claimed a famous win against Toulon in Marseilles in 2012 – and those supporters who can’t make the tip to Bilbao will be welcomed to the club’s Arms Park ground where a big screen will be erected for the festivities. I’m taking them to nick an outstanding game and spectacle by the narrowest of margins.