» Slater waits on news of injury,

» JOHAN Ackermann is hoping for good news over key second row Ed Slater after he went off injured against Newcastle.

Slater has damaged the AC joint in his shoulder and Ackermann is hoping it will be quick recovery with the play-off semi-final looming.

Gloucester have no game this weekend before going to Sale for the last regular season Premiership game on May 18.

Ackermann said: “He is sore. It’s early days to say what exactly is the extent of his injury.

“It’s definitely an AC joint injury so obviously now he needs to get tested and scanned and everything to determine what the next step is.

“It differs from player to player, some players can play with it some not, if it’s stable you can strap it, some need surgery so I don’t want to speculate.

“Obviously Ed has been in great form so it is a bit of a loss but hopefully there’s a bit of time to get him ready.”

Ackermann says he may use the game at the AJ Bell Stadium to give some minutes to players returning from injury.

“There’s obviously that opportunity to get players game time,” he said.

“Sometimes even your bench didn’t get a lot of game time in the last few weeks so we’ve got a good system where we can see everybody’s game time, every player and see who needs game time and then make a decision on who’s going to play and who is not.

“The other way is to play everybody who we think will play in the play-offs and hope and trust there won’t be any injuries and try and take that momentum into the game.

“But if you rest players and you don’t look sharp in the play-offs people will say ‘why did you rest them?’”

»Former Gloucester and England A coach Keith Richardson