Gloucester Rugby opened their Gallagher Premiership campaign with a narrow victory, 29-28, over Harlequins at Kingsholm on Saturday.
Head coach George Skivington was “most of all really proud of the lads and how they managed the game.”
Double centurion and captain Lewis Ludlow led his side to success and was at the heart of everything good for Gloucester despite the tight affair.
💬 "…I owe everything to this Club"
— Gloucester Rugby 🍒 (@gloucesterrugby) October 14, 2023
Club Captain @LewisLudlow94 reflects on a emotional day after marking his 200th appearance for the Cherry & Whites with a try and last-gasp victory. #GLOvHAR | 🍒🃏 pic.twitter.com/evoFMIAHvM
“We’ll try and get better, and I think we could be a lot better than what we were today, I’m very proud of that group.”
“The way we trained and the way we managed it led by Lewis (Ludlow) on his 200th appearance was brilliant.” Skivington said.
Harlequins controversially capitalised from a head-on-head tackle from replacement fly-half Jarrod Evans on Jack Clement and Luke Northmore went under the posts which looked to grab the victory for the visitors.
“We saw the headshot and thought it might have got pulled back before it did.” Skivington said
“Look if we had lost that game I wouldn’t have come in and moaned and I’m not going to jump from the rooftops that we won.”
“I think it was two competitive teams where both teams felt like they could have played better. There was a couple of key moments in there but again their try gets chalked off and our one that we felt was a try also gets chalked off and that’s just the way it goes.”
Skivington described the Premiership as “a ferocious beast and games will be like that week to week. We’ve done a lot of preparation to be ready for being in those positions.”
Skivington’s Cherry and Whites were trailing by two at halftime and he added, “we were calm. I felt that it was a fair game and a fair score at that moment in time. We just felt a couple of calm messages, we didn’t quite feel like we were defending as well as we had done in the Prem Cup. There were a couple points around that.
“We hadn’t really got into our game and hadn’t really fired too many shots yet. It was more about when we get our shots, we need to take them. Let’s get a bit more energy in our defence,” Skivington explained.
Fan favourite Jamal Ford-Robinson scored the winning try which sent the Shed into a frenzy after opportunities were scarce for the home side.
Ford-Robinson was a surprise entry to the fixture as he replaced an ill Val Rapava-Ruskin. Skivington explained: “Val was sick for a couple of days, and we gave him the benefit of the doubt, we made that call today when he was still not right. The important bit for me was using all our squad. So, Jamal came in and obviously scored the winning try so there’s some irony in that!”
🫨 Called up this morning.
— Gloucester Rugby 🍒 (@gloucesterrugby) October 14, 2023
😮💨 Scores the winning try.
🫡 @jfordrob pic.twitter.com/pU80Q9V1db
Scrum half Charlie Chapman’s afternoon was cut short after he took a knock to his left thigh and did try and continue.
“Then Chapman took a bang, but I don’t think it’s terrible, again, I’m hesitant to say when I don’t really know.”
The Cherry and Whites travel up north to Newcastle Falcons who suffered defeat in their opening Premiership game to Bath Rugby.
Falcons did the double on Gloucester last season but a change of set-up in the camp leaves Skivington “struggling on what to expect when we go there. We know it’s always a tough place to go and with new coaches up there that heightens the challenge next week.”
