Gloucester’s Twelvetrees to hold on to fly-half role
BILLY Twelvetrees looks set for an extended run at fly-half for Gloucester Rugby over the next few weeks after head coach George Skivington praised his performance in the 32-26 away defeat at London Irish on Saturday.
The former international centre was drafted into the number 10 jersey at the Brentford Community Stadium following a significant injury to first choice Lloyd Evans the previous week in the 31-26 home defeat to Northampton Saints on January 30.
Skivington confirmed Evans has undergone surgery on his injured ankle and will be sidelined for at least a month, meaning Twelvetrees is the only senior player available with fly-half experience after Danny Cipriani left the Cherry and Whites in December by mutual consent.
Skivington said: “The fly-half position has been interesting for us so far and I thought Billy stepped in and did a great job.
“He showed his experience and his composure and the tweaks we have been making to our game over time, I thought Billy used those and controlled those as well as we have in any game yet this season.
“It is not perfect yet but I think we can take some real positivity from the way he used our attacking plan and you could start to see the boys really connecting.
“It didn’t go perfect every time and there are other bits we have watched back and identified we could do better, but he certainly showed good composure.”
He added: “I thought he picked the right options most of the time.”
Young academy stand-off George Barton was unavailable for the game against London Irish as he had to isolate due to Covid, an inconvenience which is all too familiar in society at the moment.
With top of the table Bristol Bears coming to Kingsholm on Friday night, Skivington knows his side will have to step up another level again this weekend to try and turn promising performances into points.
He said: “It doesn’t get much tougher than Bristol who are top of the league and they play great rugby.
“They are a tough team to analyse because they have scored a lot of maul tries, they have scored a lot of wonder tries out the back, there is a lot of variation in what they do.
“They are coached very, very well. “It is exciting because it is a local derby and they are currently the best team in the country and it is going to be another level to test ourselves.
Despite their lofty position in the table Bristol come into the game having lost 20-13 to Sale Sharks last weekend and Skivington said he is expecting his side to face a Bears outfit looking for a reaction.
He said: “I am expecting they will be disappointed with the result last week and I am expecting a sharp Bristol team, a team who are not used to losing to have probably not had an enjoyable week.
“I am certain they will come here sharp and looking to make amends.”