SKIVINGTON
Tough start to life at Kingsholm but stick with us, we’ll get there
When George Skivington imagined how his first meeting as a head coach with his players and staff would go, telling them not to socialise or see each other when they returned home from the club each day did not trouble his thoughts. But that was how it had to be when he arrived at Kingsholm last July at a time of lockdown and restrictions.
Skivington, who at the time of his appointment was the Premiership’s youngest head coach at the age of 37, born a month after Wasps’ Lee Blackett, came armed with plans on how to transform a club that had become consistent only in its inconsistency but found that change at a time of Covid could not be rushed.
“It cannot be underestimated how important having a bit of social time together is for a club,” said Skivington, who arrived from London Irish. “Yet there I was telling everyone that I did not want us to be a team that brought Covid into the environment when it was avoidable. I said that everyone had to toe the line and stick to the regulations over mixing, warning that I would not accept anyone not doing so.
“I drove home thinking it was not the first meeting I wanted to have because it was a time you wanted to get to know them, but it had to be done with all that was going on. And it is a huge credit to everyone here that we have not had one positive Covid test nor had to have a match cancelled because of an outbreak of the virus. They, and their families, have done an amazing job in the most challenging of times.”
When Twickenham published its review into England’s Six Nations campaign last week and highlighted a list of factors behind the slump from first to fifth, one of them was the lack of a pre-season for Premiership players because the new season had started less than three weeks after the conclusion of the previous one, a handicap the Top 14 and the PRO14 did not suffer.
“Having a pre-season is massive,” said Skivington. “When I arrived, we had nine quickfire games, a few weeks off and were then into the new season. It has meant learning on the go, extremely intense but enjoyable because it is great being in the firing line and in the thick of it, but it makes it harder to develop systems.
“My passion is set-pieces, but as with defence and attack, the coaches have not had the time to lay the foundations as they would have with a proper pre-season. It has been tricky and, as a new coaching group, we have had to find out how we can operate together and push each other’s buttons in a different way.”
A new regime normally arranges bonding sessions to get to know the players and staff and at points during a season when stimulation is needed. Skivington has spent much of his time on Zoom meetings, but they cannot replicate the Bavarian Beer Festival Saracens used to visit to ensure that teammates became friends.
“As coaches, we have not had a coffee or a beer together never mind dinner,” said Skivington. “I think it will bode well in the long run because some strong connections have been developed in this period and when we do get the opportunity to relax together and socialise, as well as meet families, it will take us to another level.”
Gloucester spent much of the first half of the season on the bottom of the table with just one win in their first ten matches before defeating Worcester and Wasps in successive weeks. They lost one of their senior players and a key figure in their gameplan, Danny Cipriani, below, after the opening weekend when the outside-half asked for his contract to be terminated so he could take some time away from the game.
“It was not part of the plan,” said Skivington, “and it was something else we had to work round. It was painful at the time, but at this level you have to be able to deal with curve balls and find a solution. Watching George Barton develop in the position has been a pleasure and the biggest positive for me to emerge from this is that the organisation has shown it is very, very tight despite a lot of things that have been thrown at us with no way of being able to bond. We will have a proper pre-season this summer and it is a case of suffer with us now and when we get to where we want to be, enjoy it together. It is a building process and we will get there.”
“As coaches, we have not a had a coffee or a beer together, never mind dinner”
Like Gloucester, Wasps have struggled this season having made the Premiership final last October. It is Blackett’s first full season in charge after succeeding Dai Young in February last year. Like Skivington, he does not use Covid as an excuse and stresses how rugby players are more fortunate than many in being able to carry on during the lockdowns, but measures he would consider to arrest a losing streak, such as taking the players away, have not been an option.
“It has been a really strange year in terms of bonding,” said Blackett, right. “It has been harder on the younger guys who have not had the option of going out and meeting people. It has affected their lifestyle and their getaway from rugby. When all you can do is go home alone it can take a toll mentally if you cannot pull your mind away from the game. It is the people with outside distractions who have even able to hold it together the best.
“This has been the most challenging time of my coaching career. There are loads of things I would like to do it the club: I am one for getting families involved and having something beyond a professional footballer’s job, a life outside rugby. It might involve a beer, although not always, but you cannot do anything like getting away and organising something social.” As a player, Blackett had a release valve he relied on to keep himself mentally fresh, although some of the coaches he played under frowned on it because it involved an element of physical activity, golf. The pastime has been denied to players for much of the last year, even the international squads who found themselves bunkered up close to bunkers during the Autumn Nations Cup and Six Nations.
“Golf was my escape and my best rugby came when I played it,” said Blackett. “I see that with Jimmy Gopperth at Wasps and being able to have a release like that is a big thing. It is all about how the younger guys manage their life because if you think about rugby 24/7, you become stale pretty quickly, all the more so given that we have been playing since August with only a two-week break. When you go through a bad patch, it would make it easier if you had outside interests to act as distractions, but it would be wrong to moan because of what everyone has been going through. It is just that Zoom will never begin to replace personal contact.”