Gloucester Rugby under 18’s player, Rakhart Clarkson admitted that the side are fully focused on bouncing back, following their 37-17 loss to Saracens.
“We’ve got two more games at home. As Dec [Danaher] said, just take the two games, next game mentality. Coming back off a loss, you can’t really.
“Because obviously, we’ll review it, and that’s it. And then the next two weeks are just ‘what can we do to win that game?’”
“In this game, we’ve got intent and attitude, but it’s just that execution coming down to whether we’re visiting their ’22, executing and scoring a try,” mentioned Clarkson.
It’s all about the next game now for the Cherry and Whites, as Clarkson and the team are already looking for improvements for this upcoming weekend.
“The only couple of things that we didn’t execute really were attack and skillset. That was the point of it. We went up to the ’22 and didn’t execute. It comes to that. So, in two weeks’ time now, it’s Leicester Tigers,” added Clarkson.
Josh Gray, coach for the Gloucester U18s also voiced his thoughts on his team and the difficult path they had during the game.
“I think we’ll work on some kick-chase connection stuff, how we can be more connected, stay closer together and make sure there aren’t those big dog legs in that chase.
“We’ll work on our two-man tackles, soaking up the ball a bit more. They were able to get the offloads away, so we’ll focus on that sort of stuff. But we’ll just keep drilling the basics for them, to be honest,” Gray admitted.
Even though their trip to North London resulted in defeat, Gray remarks how proud he is of his team for powering through the game.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the lads. I thought the fight we showed was something that we as coaches can’t teach.
“And I thought that was in abundance to be honest, we probably harmed ourselves more than they harmed us at times. So I’m really proud of the lads,” the coach said.
With three straight losses, Gloucester U18s will be back on the pitch this Saturday at home to play Leicester Tigers.
