We looked a bit rusty in areas, says Skivington

HEAD coach George Skivington says his side were their ‘own worst enemy’ in a harsh 38-15 opening round defeat to Leicester Tigers in the Gallagher Premiership.

A catalogue of unforced errors and ill discipline prevented the Cherry and Whites from getting a hold of the game at Welford Road and started in the worst possible fashion.

“I am disappointed with a lot of what we did today,” Skivington said.

“We have changed a few things and I knew there was going to be a bit of a transition but I thought we would look a lot better than that.”

Leicester scored two early tries inside the first 11 minutes through Kobus Van Wyk and Tom Youngs which would put Gloucester on the back foot for the rest of the game.

Skivington said: “I think it was a difficult first 20 minutes. It was difficult all day. I think we made some very basic errors, our discipline was bad.

“Every time we tried to get ourselves into the game on the front foot, we managed to give away a penalty and they kicked to the corner and down the field and Leicester’s set piece was pretty good.”

Veteran scrum half Richard Wigglesworth scored the Tigers’ third try on debut shortly after but the pass before Harry Potter’s kick through appeared to go forward. Gloucester’s head coach did not try to take the attention away from his side’s mistake, saying: “It looked slightly forward but it wasn’t the making or breaking of the game. “That is one of the things the officials occasionally get wrong, but we were our own worst enemy today and it wouldn’t have made a difference if that try was given or not. “Ultimately, I think the discipline cost us overall.”

Since Gloucester’s final game of last

season on September 22, Skivington’s squad have spent the majority of the weeks recuperating which meant that they may have had less preparation time than with a regularly scheduled season.

Skivington reflected on how this may have affected his team, saying: “As coaches we’ve got to look at this and say ‘did we prepare the boys well enough. We did have a hit out last week but potentially it was not enough.

“We looked a bit rusty in certain areas in on basic skill set.

“We thought we had done it right on the way in but we’re going to have to have a good look at that and work out what we missed to get ready for the first game.”

However, positive news to come from Skivington post-match was that newly-named captain Lewis Ludlow was up and talking after being removed from the field for a head injury assessment.

“He’s ok. He is up and about now and chatting to the boys.

“Obviously, he got a concussion there which isn’t great but I just had a chat with him there and he seems ok, so he’ll have to go through concussion protocol now.”

Gloucester will play their first home game of the season next weekend as they host last season’s runners up Wasps at Kingsholm.

The Cherry and Whites boss is aware of the threat the visitors will pose as well as the turnaround in performance.

“Their game plan is very efficient in what they do and when they get hold of the ball, they’re dangerous,” said Skivington.

“We have a week to get prepared for a very good team and learn some serious lessons from today.”