ND -- need focus

By Cherry Picker
January 16 2013

Gloucester have dominated their Amlin Cup Pool this season, last weekend's win in Bordeaux ensuring they qualify for the quarter-finals. But they still need a Kingsholm win over Mont de Marsan on Saturday to earn a home game in the last eight.

Having earned a narrow win against Saturday’s opponents in the away game in October, Glaws know they can do it, but in their last home game they lost to London Irish, so they certainly can’t take anything for granted.

In fact, they could do worse than using that below-par performance against Irish as an incentive to get things done on Saturday so they will be playing at Kingsholm on the first weekend of April.

And coach Nigel Davies wasn’t exactly over the moon with the performance in Bordeaux, where he felt Glaws were still quite a way below their best at times.

“There is a lot of work to do and a lot of the aspects of our performance to improve, but the result was what counted,” he admitted.

“The Mont de Marsan game is important and we need to be really focussed for it and for the next three weeks with LV= Cup games to come.

“We have to get that London Irish performance as far away from our minds as possible, and it was a little too close for comfort against Bordeaux.”

The Amlin game this weekend is followed by a visit to Northampton and a home game against Bath in the LV=, before the Premiership resumes with a return to Northampton on February 9.

Meanwhile, Davies says that the club will not tolerate any “afters” in Saturday’s game following Andy Hazell’s rash reaction in the initial game between the clubs that earned him a 14-week ban.

He’s hoping there will be no reaction from either team to what Hazell did or to what Glaws are convinced was severe provocation.

He told the Citizen: “We've always said we accept what Andy Hazell did was wrong, it was unacceptable. But that was as far as I'm concerned a reaction to stuff that was going on on the field, and that stuff was unacceptable.

"Several players came off the field to state the fact that there was some foul play going on. And I was concerned going into this game, because we will not accept that, we won't have it.

"I will not compromise my players by sending them into an environment where those type of things are happening.”

But the weather could have a say ... the forecast for Friday includes a Met Office warning for heavy snow in the region, though of course they do appear to issue warnings at the drop of a hat these days. However, the outlook is not bright.

Glaws need win for home quarter-final

Discussion started by Shedloads (IP Logged), 16/01/2013 11:47

Shedloads
16/01/2013 11:47

What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.

Reply Quote Report

Message List Search Log In

Your Name:
Subject:

We record all IP addresses on the Sportnetwork message boards which may be required by the authorities in case of defamatory or abusive comment. We seek to monitor the Message Boards at regular intervals. We do not associate Sportnetwork with any of the comments and do not take responsibility for any statements or opinions expressed on the Message Boards. If you have any cause for concern over any material posted here please let us know as soon as possible by e-mailing abuse@sportnetwork.net