Twelvetrees proves he can still make the difference
BILLY Twelvetrees has been rolling back the years with Gloucester in recent weeks having had to wait for his chance this season as the club gave youth its head.
Injuries meant the 34year old centre, who has won 22 England caps, filled in at outside-half at Bordeaux-Begles last month and bossed the game to take the club into the last 16 of the Heineken Champions Cup.
“Billy might not have played much this season but he has been doing great work in the background with the young lads and reviewing their games,” said Gloucester coach George Skivington.
“It was a cauldron in Bordeaux and he kept his cool. We went in with a pretty good plan of where we wanted to get the ball and how quickly we could achieve that and the boys followed his lead.
“He is still one of the fittest blokes in the team. He might have lost a bit of pace, as he would admit, but with his understanding of the game he was the right call for Bordeaux. He might not have featured much this season, but he has been brilliant. You want blokes like that in a club and it is great to see him delivering on the field.”
Twelvetrees, who joined Gloucester in 2012, did not start a match this season until November, when a number of backs were on international duty, but he can expect to be called on with Chris Harris away with Scotland and Adam Hastings injured.
“Billy can cover 10, 12 and 13 from the bench,” said Skivington. “We have had many chats and he knows that I want to pull the young lads through. That has meant that he has sometimes had to step back.
“I have a long-term relationship with him. He was a youngster at Leicester when I was there and I can be very honest with him. He wants to smack me half the time but we can have an open dingdong. He will always do what is right for the team and that is what you want. I have to make calls that are not always what individuals want.
“Billy is an absolute team-first bloke. He still gets as angry as he did when he was 20 and the fastest player on the field, but he is now able to walk away and come back the next day saying, ‘Skivs, got you and understand. Now I will do everything to make sure we win on the weekend even though I am not involved or on the bench’.
“We gave him clubman of the year last season and having someone like him in your squad is brilliant for a coach.”
Gloucester went into the short break in the Premiership fifth in the table, two points behind Exeter. They are at home to the team below them, Harlequins, in the next round, and then travel to the side immediately above them, Northampton.
“I have learned more in the first half of this season than at any other time in the job,” said Skivington. “We had laid foundations and were clear on how we wanted to kick on, but we were decimated but the loss of a number of frontline players.”