Tom Willis has told Planet Rugby that artificial pitches are “not in the player’s control” and that Kingsholm’s is “one of the better ones”.
He also admitted Bordeaux-Bègles made errors on their exits and will have to review their strategy after being held 36-36 by a Gloucester side whose quality he called “unbelievable”.
It was Willis’s first game back on English soil since he left Saracens for Bordeaux, and he was the visitors’ best player on the night: 17 carries, 14 tackles, seven defenders beaten, two turnovers and a six-metre drive with half the Gloucester pack hanging off him that set up Sipili Falatea’s try.
“They’re part of the game, I fully understand it”
The pitch was the obvious place to start, given his departure from Saracens was reported to be partly about the StoneX surface. He didn’t bite. “They’re part of the game, I fully understand it,” he said. “I played for Sarries for three years and had a great time there. They’re part of the game, it’s not in the player’s control, and Gloucester’s is definitely one of the better ones. No issues there. I’m just frustrated with the result, first and foremost.”
The frustration was about the twenty minutes after half-time more than anything. UBB had the red-zone efficiency of champions, seven entries into the Gloucester 22 for five tries against Gloucester’s fourteen, but between the 55th and 72nd minutes they repeatedly refused to clear their own 22, both Will Trenholm tries came off it, and Romain Buros dropped one trying to run out. I asked what the conversation was in that spell.
“I’ll have to watch it back. Obviously there were a couple of errors on our exits, and that’s the game. We lost a couple as well. It’s unfortunate, we’ll review it and have a look at our strategy, but off the top of my head I’m not going to get into it.
“Obviously a crazy game, a good one for the neutral, frustrating for us. Everyone wants to start a Champions Cup campaign with a win. We did well, based on the first half, to scrap back into it and take the lead, and fair play to Gloucester. They’ve done so well in the Premiership and watching them they’ve been outstanding.”
He’d expected exactly that. “They’ve recruited so well. Their forwards have always been tough and their back line has always been very good; they’ve probably underperformed in recent seasons but they’ve been brilliant this one. The quality in their squad is unbelievable. I’ve played with quite a few of the boys, so it’s nice to see some familiar faces.”
A huge battle up front
The scrum was the other sore point. UBB lost one scrum in the whole of last season’s Champions Cup; they lost two on the bounce in the first half here, one of them producing the Max Llewellyn try, and finished at 67 per cent success against Gloucester’s 100. Willis wasn’t going to carry that one. “You’d have to ask one of the props. I don’t understand scrums enough to know what was going wrong at the front. Potentially I could have done better coming off the back of it myself, giving us clean ball to exit, but I’ll have to look at it back.”
On Ben Tameifuna, the tighthead who played the best part of an hour at lock in front of him, he was generous. “Potentially we’ll mix it around a bit. The game’s moving that way, there are a lot more players playing multiple positions, and I thought Ben played very well, especially considering it was his first game back since I don’t know when last season.”
The bigger question, for a man who’s now played at the top of both leagues, is what’s actually different. “It’s just very different. The Premiership is probably much more attack-focused. The Top 14 is more physical, a lot harder to break teams down, and Gloucester defended brilliantly today. The Champions Cup is refereed differently too; it’s a different competition, different all round. We’ve got to look at ourselves and see where we can do better.”
Gloucester got two outstanding eights of their own against him, Jack Clement matching his 17 carries and leading the game with 107 metres, Trenholm scoring twice off the bench. “They’re brilliant. I’ve played against Jack Clement for years and he’s always a really good contest, an outstanding player, and Will Trenholm more recently has been tearing it up. I know them both and I’m very happy for them to be doing so well.”
What happened at half-time, with UBB 24-17 down and the scrum in trouble? “We needed the reaction,” he said, and then stopped, because the review would say the rest. UBB’s winning run in the competition stays at 16, level with La Rochelle’s record, and the man they signed to extend it was the best forward on the pitch in a game nobody won.