With only two games left of the regular season, and a chance to make the playoffs, the Gloucestershire Gladiators Club Captain, Aidan Morris, believes the team have been working as hard as ever,
“The energy in training has been immense, we don’t get much field time a week, three hours or so on astro, and an hour or so on grass, but every time we train, it’s 110% effort, the coaches say it all the time how proud they are of the team this year, and I always have to agree with them.
“It’s gonna be hard of course, two games left and them being back-to-back games, but from what I’ve seen from my team this year, there’s no reason why we can’t win both.”
Each year, a new set of players will come through, they may have never played the sport before, or have had years of experience, but Morris believes these ‘rookies’ have been real standouts this year,
“I think I have a real appreciation for our rookies, especially the ones the have never played before, I was in their position before and my old Club Captain used to give me encouragement all the time so now I wanna do the same to them.
“They’ve all balled out in training, they’re all showing that they want starting spots, I worry I’m gonna lose my position with how good they are sometimes, but in all seriousness, this is what I want to see with two very important games left, it’s make or break time now so i’m loving this mentality.”
The first of the two games is against the Bath Spa Bulldogs, a team the Gladiators beat 27-12 last season,
“Right now, the main focus is on Bath Spa of course as that’s the first of the two games, we beat them last year but that doesn’t really mean anything, every team in our division is strong, I’d say it’s the strongest division 2 across the whole of the UK, anyone can beat anyone really.
“I don’t really look at other results or our previous results, I just like going into games with the same mentality, I want to win, we could be playing the New England Patriots, I wouldn’t care how they’re doing, I just wanna give my all, and I’m sure the rest of the team do too.”
Playoffs are very much on the cards for Gloucestershire, but they must beat the Swansea Titans as well as Bath Spa,
“As I said, I don’t really pay attention to results that much, but I know Swansea are going to be tough, UWE Bullets are top of the table, Swansea are 2nd, we are 3rd I believe, we win out, we make playoffs, we lose, we don’t make playoffs.
“Two years ago we played the Swansea Titans in the regular season and the playoffs, we unfortunately lost both those games, so Swansea is always a big game for me and the team because of that season.
“It’s my final year playing for the club, and many others too, we all want the best, we want to win a ring, and we can only do that by winning of course, I want to make Gladiators history, we’ve never won a ring, to be in the history books as the first Club Captain to win a ring would be great, but I don’t want that achievement for myself, I want it for the team.”
Gloucestershire vs Bath Spa will be on Sunday, February 15th, with the game against Swansea being the following week on Sunday, 22nd February.
Great article
Great article johnny was a pleasure being interviewed by you.