» Gloucester’s Morgan will have to wait for England chance

RICHARD Whiffin insists the Premiership Rugby Cup is “hugely valuable” to Gloucester.

With much of the senior squad given some time off after the first eight weeks of the season, a young side including five debutants in the starting XV claimed a 31-7 win over Wasps in their first game of the new competition.

It replaces the Anglo-welsh Cup with some clubs opting to field much stronger sides than others in the first weekend, leading to some one-sided results.

Gloucester’s team boasted 190 more first team appearances than that of Wasps thanks largely to the experience of Gareth Evans, Henry Purdy and Ben Vellacott.

And head of academy Richard Whiffin, who is taking the coaching reins for the competition, believes the cup competition does play an important role.

“We had nine guys make their senior debuts in front of a big crowd, the Shed roaring,” he said.

“We want those young guys to get those experiences and they’ll only be better for that.

“Once we start to drip a few more senior guys around them they’re only going to learn even more and the fact that you see the Ben Vellacotts, the Ciaran Knights and those guys playing regularly now in the first team only shows that the pathway is working well and Saturday was an opportunity for some of the younger guys to put their hands up as well.”

Gloucester scored four tries in the first 24 minutes against Wasps, with three of them coming while the visitors had captain Will Porter in the sin bin.

Whiffin said: “I’m incredibly pleased. We spoke all week about scanning for space and executing to it and i think the first 20, 25 minutes was a big tick in the box of how to execute a game plan.

“I think Ben (Vellacott) and Lloyd (Evans) put us in the right areas of the field and we capitalised off the back of that.

“Our control and intent in the 10 minutes while the scrum-half was in the bin, I think we executed that time period outstandingly well.

“We got messages on about where we thought the space would be. We got three scores in that period and took the game away from Wasps.”

Gloucester face Bristol next at Ashton Gate on Friday in Pool 2 and more senior players could be involved.

“It will be a similar based team,” said Whiffin.

“There will be a few more first teamers in and around the training squad and putting their hand up for selection so that’s something myself and Humps (David Humphreys, director of rugby) will speak about but I think there will be few guys coming back in.”