Gloucester suffered their eighth loss of the season on Friday as they were narrowly defeated by Gallagher Premiership leaders Bristol Bears 18-17 at Kingsholm.
The Cherry and White’s led 17-15 until a high tackle from lock Alex Craig in the 75th minute allowed Bears’ fly-half Ioan Lloyd to convert a penalty from 40 meters which ultimately secured the win for Pat Lam’s side.
Despite the loss, head coach George Skivington remained positive and said he was “happy” with where his side is going.
He said: “My take is we’re getting better all the time and as I say we stick to our plan and our process and we take something from every game. As a group, we’re growing nicely.
“There’s different people leading different areas that could potentially have not been the case in the past and different people are probably becoming empowered within the group, which is great.”
Gloucester went into the game knowing that their spot in the league was secure after RFU’s decision to scrap relegation from the Premiership this season.
But Skivington insisted that decision had no effect on his side’s mindset or performance heading into the game.
“From Gloucester’s point of view, it doesn’t really change anything because the pressure we put on the squad and the coaches and everyone at the club is very much internally driven and has been the whole time and it will continue to be like that,” he said.
Read more: Pros and cons of the National League being voided this season
“It’s just about building every week getting better and just moving forward. So, and as I say, getting the young Gloucester players involved, we’ve been doing really well and will continue to do, and it doesn’t change anything from our approach.”
There were a lot of positives to take from the game for Gloucester including a stand out performance and brace from Argentinian winger Santiago Carreras whose two intercept tries both came from beyond 50 meters.
Performances have been improving for Gloucester recently, all that’s missing now is the result.
They will travel to 10th placed Bath on February 19 where they’ll be hoping to put an end to their abysmal start to the season and get back to winning ways.
Keep up to date with all the latest sports stories with our live blog
