Praise for Wales hopeful

GLOUCESTER director of rugby George Skivington has praised Max Llewellyn for how he’s settled into life at the Gallagher Premiership club.

Llewellyn, who made his Wales debut last year, played 47 minutes of the Cherry and Whites’ Challenge Cup win over the Ospreys, carrying well at times before being replaced by British and Irish Lions centre Chris Harris.

Afterwards, Skivington played down any injury concerns as he sang the praises of Llewellyn.

“Thankfully I think he’s alright actually,” he said. “I was going to use Chris at some point anyway and that just seemed like a trigger to do that.

“But he’s been brilliant. I think Max has really grown in stature. He’s literally put seven kilos on this year so he has really got bigger.

“But I think in terms of the bloke he is, he’s come out (here) and the boys love him. We’ve got a good few lads his age, they’ve got a nice group. I think he’s a star for the future.

“Still got bits and pieces to do but the try he scored last week off the back of the lineout was absolutely outstanding. I saw [Wales coach] Alex King was here today and presumably that’s what he was here for.”

Skivington also praised his side’s defence in the attritional win over Ospreys.

“After missing so many tackles in our league fixture against Bristol, we’ve had a big focus on our defence in the last two weeks so I’m really pleased at how we went in that area,” he said.

“We knew Ospreys would go hard at the breakdown and they got into us early on and caught us on the counter with an excellent try. Despite it being only 14-13 at the interval, we were happy we were doing the right things but overall we weren’t accurate enough. We are lucky to have secured a number of knock-out games at home so far this season and the more we bring to Kingsholm the better.”