No regrets for Gloucester boss after B-team nilled by Leinster

George Skivington's side were hammered in Dublin on Friday night.

ROUT: Gloucester players, including Harry Taylor, right, after conceding their side's eighth try. Picture: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Nigel Melville didn’t, couldn’t, hide his anger. Embarrassing, he said. The worst half of rugby in his coaching career. Exactly the sort of stuff you would expect when your side had just been held scoreless at home in a European Cup match that had to be won if they wanted to make the knockout stages.

This was 18 years ago and Melville’s hurt only heightened by the fact that it was Gloucester’s first ever loss at home in the competition. And what a loss! A 27-0 trouncing by a Stade Francais side that would ultimately fall six points shy of Toulouse in that season’s final.

Gloucester were nilled again at the RDS on Friday night. Leinster piled 57 points on the other end of the scales without even playing all that brilliantly. They didn’t have to against a visiting side that had given the vast majority of its frontline staff a weekend’s leave. The price paid was inevitable.

But there was no venting from George Skivington. The Gloucester boss didn’t feel any embarrassment at what had just transpired. Sure, he expressed disappointment at the scoreline and circumstances, but there was pride at how his young and green side stuck at it against Leinster’s All Stars.

He had framed his selection before the game in the context of the load imposed on his squad this season. Gloucester are the last Premiership side to avail of a bye in the league. They have now fielded a team eleven weeks in a row between domestic league and cup and Champions Cup. Something had to give, he said.

Another six weeks of competition loom before the fixture list will finally grant them some breathing room at the back end of January so when he sat down with his staff a while back to look at where they might release the pressure valve then, well, they agreed there was only one obvious answer.

Dublin it was. So, no regrets.

“Not at all. If someone could show me a better way of resting players then I will be very welcome to it (sic) because we spent hours thinking how we would do it and in the end there was only one obvious solution, which was this week. No regrets.” 

His upbeat air struck a discordant tone at first, coming as it did so soon after the final whistle in Ballsbridge, but his logic and his measured delivery made more sense – from Gloucester’s point of view – the more he spoke.

This is not a Gloucester problem, it is a tournament issue, and maybe the most dispiriting fact in all of this is that the Cherry and White’s have basically forfeited their second round game and still have, thanks to an opening win against Bordeaux-Begles, every chance of making the quarter-finals.

Montpellier did just that last season. The Top 14 side conceded 89 points to Leinster in Dublin, beat Exeter in the last pool round to escape the pool stage, accounted for Harlequins over two legs in the round of 16 and then fell on the road to La Rochelle’s eventual champions in the quarter-finals.

“The context of the competition does allow you (do that), possibly, but that wouldn’t be my approach to the competition,” Skivington stressed. “I think it’s the best competition in rugby. When the bye week got taken away I was as devastated as anyone because I would have loved to come here full throttle.

“Leinster would be the acid marker for us to see how far we have or haven’t come either way. From that point of view I was very excited when the fixture list came out six months ago but some bad stuff has happened in the Premiership and we’re the team that has suffered for that in our planning.” 

It’s not like the Heineken Champions Cup wasn’t springing leaks before now. The impression of laissez faire French sides in what used to be ‘Europe’ is well established but Leinster’s dealings with English sides in Dublin is another pointer to the sickness at the heart of this tournament.

The last six pool stage visits by Premiership sides to Dublin have resulted in half-a-dozen straightforward home victories with Leinster winning them by an average of over 33 points. Gloucester’s decision to surrender before a shot is fired is undoubtedly a new low, though, and one that devalues the competition still further.

“That’s for everyone else to decide,” said Skivington. “I’ve just got to manage Gloucester the best I can throughout the season so from my point of view I am not devaluing it at all. I hope one day we can be firing on all fronts.” ENDS -- Brendan O'Brien Assistant Sports Editor and Sports Writer Irish Examiner (Dublin Office) Mob: [phone] Twitter: @byBrendanOBrien