BR - target

By Cherry Picker
August 25 2010

Coach Bryan Redpath says the key to success in the Premiership is getting good results in away games, and the early signs as the new season approaches is that Gloucester might just be on the way to solving the travel sickness that did so much damage to their hopes last season. Winning last weekend's pre-season game at Ospreys, last season's Magners League champions, was a start and they'll be hoping to make it a friendly double when they travel even further afield to play Munster this weekend.
But there's a hangover from the Ospreys game to sort out first, with a string of injuries causing concern at Kingsholm.
Andy Hazell, Pierre Capdevielle, Henry Trinder, Mike Tindall and Nicky Robinson all picked up injuries, but there are hopes that at least some of them will be fit in time to go to Ireland.
Glaws only won two away games last season, and with Kingsholm results on a par with most other Premiership contenders, it was this failure to do anything on their travels which cost them so dear.
Redpath told the Citizen: "To win away from home you have to be really strong defensively. Apart from the two league games we won, we also won away in the Heineken and the LV Cup so we have won away in other competitions.
"But the biggest one we have to win in is the Premiership because that is your bread and butter.
"You have to finish guaranteed top four and potentially top six if you want to get in the Heineken Cup so you have to work hard and away wins are what you get measured on. We have to get that mentality right."
Glaws were, indeed, too much of a soft touch away from home last season - some of their performances were not just defeats, they were embarrassments.
They need to be as competitive away as they are at home, and to achieve that they need to take a more professional "they-shall-not-pass" attitude.
If they can do it at Munster as well as at Ospreys, they will have every reason to go into the first competitive game of the season, at newly-promoted Exeter, confident that they can reverse last season's depressing away trend.

Let's get it right on the road, Glaws

Discussion started by Shedloads (IP Logged), 25/08/2010 11:04

Shedloads
25/08/2010 11:04

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