Gloucester
Glaws seasons gets down to the nitty gritty
Dean Ryan
By Cherry Picker
March 27 2008
Five games to go and knocked off the top of the Guinness Premiership for the first time this season by neighbours B*th, if Gloucester aren’t firing on all cylinders when they go into Saturday’s derby at Worcester, they never will be. Dean Ryan’s squad has stuttered its way through the last few weeks and now is the time for a revival.
With Six Nations calls and injuries taking their toll on the form of individuals and the team itself, results have fallen off alarmingly in the second half of the season.
They can't afford any more slip-ups.
Some players with lonmg-term injuries are still out, of course, but after a fortnight without a game, Ryan has had time to sort one or two things out and players have had time to nurse any minor bumps and bruises before the business end of the season begins, the Wuss game followed next weekend by the big one – Munster at home in the Heineken Cup quarter-final.
The next few weeks will decide when Gloucester are going to finish the season as also-rans or as winners, and anything but a win at Sixfields must be regarded as the possible beginning of the end.
Meanwhile, Ryan has pledged his future to Kingsholm after again being pushed as a potential England coach.
He told the Citizen: "I've said a number of times I'm flattered for people to think it's something I'm in the mix with.
"There's a lot of things I feel I still need to experience here. I feel there's a lot more to come from this group and I wouldn't want not to be involved in that process.
"I've spent a lot of time and energy getting this group together and from a personal point of view I need to grow with this group.
"I think they've got a lot of growing to do, too, and I want to be around when that happens."
B*th’s visit to Kingsholm on the last day of the GP season promises to be very interesting, but there’s a lot of rugby to be played between now and then and hopefully Glaws will be in the mood to wipe out recent disappointments ands rediscover the form that made them clear leaders earlier in the season.
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