Gloucester can deliver on the biggest stages
ONE of the Bath players offered an interesting insight into the team last week when he suggested that they were training like Tarzan but playing like Jane.
It is not particularly scientific yet is all the more valuable because of that. The professional game has so much analysis attached to it that you sometimes lose sight of the wood for the trees and poor performances are usually down to players performing badly together.
There is, however, another possible angle and it might be that their team is leaving too much on the training paddock and the players are banjaxxed when kick-off time comes along.
This is unlikely – but possible. If any athlete trains really hard before he has fully recovered from the previous session(s), his fitness levels will inevitably drop. It is key that the process is meticulous or a whole team can be on a downward spiral even though they are training their socks off.
Things were much easier to handle in the amateur game as the final session was usually on a Thursday evening and that allowed a day and a half of recovery. If Friday training had been around, no doubt the players would have been beasted – but it was never an option.
The win against Worcester had some memorable moments, not least the apparent feat for Gloucester of being responsible for all the points in the first half. We scored ours through skill and graft, yet seemed to hand Worcester their prizes with odd errors.
The roar from the home crowd was for the first successful conversion, which seemed to take forever and a day. The silver medal for roaring came when Franco Mostert came on and ended all the speculation of ‘will he, won’t he’? he did and will be a more than useful contributor to the strength of the squad.
The bench is usually a pretty accurate sign of how deep any squad goes and Gloucester’s ishugely impressive now. The referee, of course, did not know what he was doing when any decisions went against Gloucester and there were plenty of spectators to get the opinion across; some things never change!
But there was one aspect of Tom Foley’s performance was the way that he managed to maintain the offside line when the tackle took place. In the televised match the previous evening, Harlequins and Exeter had 80 minutes of illegal play.
As soon as a ruck or maul formed, the outside winger and centre started a blitz; it was soon followed by the defenders inside them.
There is much to applaud about any aggressive, positive and dynamic defence. But when the whole thing is clearly offside from the off, you wonder why the game bothers with so many officials. It is not easy for any referee to spot, but he has two assistants and a plethora of experts in the television wings.
In fact Tom Foley came out well in just about every aspect of what was an intense local derby. It is unusual for such a game to go by without a few incendiary flashpoints, so we really do miss a certain Mr O’callaghan.
He could always be relied upon to raise the temperature and was never averse to assisting the referee with his interpretation of the Laws.
We now have Exeter Chiefs on consecutive weekends. The first encounter in the European competition is away and the second at Kingsholm.
Then there is the dubious pleasure of travelling to Newcastle before the Christmas food and festivities.
Gloucester can live with Exeter, though they have to be kept well away from the try line as their driving maul is frighteningly efficient.
They become uniformly singleminded when they get within range, yet Harlequins showed that they can be matched with a physical approach and, the most important aspect of all, – an accurate kicking game with a positive chase.
It sounds easy but many teams have struggled to break the stranglehold that Exeter usually put on their opponents. Keep them well away from our 22 for as long as possible and there is a good chance that Gloucester will match anything they can offer.
One win from these two encounters would be excellent; two might be difficult but definitely possible. We now have a squad that has to believe in itself to go down to Devon (and anywhere else in the Premiership) and deliver.