George Skivington believes his Gloucester side “scored enough tries to win and created enough pressure to win” against the double European champions, says two “dull” penalties gave Bordeaux-Bègles their way back into the game, and told Planet Rugby to “piss off” when pressed on the refereeing of his maul.
A 36-36 draw with the holders ought to be a good night at Kingsholm, and for an hour and a bit it was a great one. Gloucester scored five tries, led 24-17 at the break and 36-29 with twenty to play, and had the champions’ scrum in pieces. Skivington knew all of that and still couldn’t settle on how he felt.
“I’m really proud,” he said. “We said we wanted to put our game on them and I can only be positive about the way the boys did it. But it’s a funny feeling, because there were opportunities to win the game. We gave them a couple of easy outs in the first half when we really had them under pressure, and maybe that’s a bit of learning for us. A draw’s a funny result, isn’t it? You don’t fall either side. We had enough opportunities to score another try or two, but they’ll feel the same way; it was a 50-50 game and someone could have nicked it. Right now I think we could have won that game. But ultimately the European champions came.”
Nobody in the home dressing room was treating a draw as a result. “I don’t think anyone’s happy with that. We scored enough tries to win, we created enough pressure to win, and we made a couple of errors and a couple of little disciplines.”
The disciplines were the point. Both of UBB’s first-half tries came from the corner off Gloucester ruck penalties, Maxime Lucu slotted a penalty from 54 metres off another, as the visitors kicked 1,025 metres on the night, Lucu alone accounting for 803, which is how a side with 44 per cent of the ball finished with 61 per cent of the second-half territory. Skivington didn’t dispute that UBB had walked the length of the pitch on Gloucester’s mistakes.
“There were a couple of unnecessary ones we gave away that were pretty dumb, to be honest. The good thing is they’re things we can easily cut out. They weren’t breaking us down. They weren’t doing Bordeaux things and putting us under huge pressure with their game.” He came back to it later, unprompted. “There were a couple of moments where we had Bordeaux under pressure and lads did something stupid, that would be the word, and then we gave away another penalty, and another, and they scored. That happened twice, and both of them started with a real dull one, so they’re avoidable. I’ll be showing those on Monday: you put a lot into this, and to give it away on a little moment like that is a bit of a waste.”
“I’m going to reserve what I want to say”
Then the maul. Gloucester went to the corner five times and scored once; three consecutive trips between the 27th and 32nd minutes produced a held-up drive, a tap, a maul that went nowhere and a knock-on, with UBB absorbing each drive on the ground without ever competing in the air. I asked whether he’d rethought the strategy after being closed down four times.
“I felt like our maul was getting some traction, we just didn’t quite get over in those early ones,” he said. “I think our maul’s in a really good spot. I’m going to reserve what I want to say on that, actually.” Was he going to tell me to go to prison? “No, I’m going to tell you to piss off. There were a few moments where we might have got rewarded a little bit.” He left it there, and so did I.
The numbers back him on most of the rest. Gloucester made fourteen entries into the UBB 22 against seven, carried for 417 metres to 206, set 82 rucks to 63 and finished with the scrum at 100 per cent success against 67. Where they don’t back him is the red zone: fourteen entries produced five tries, UBB’s seven produced five, and George Barton’s conversion of Will Trenholm’s first try hit the post. The two points between a draw and a win aren’t hard to find.
Tom Willis had Kingsholm raving on his return to England, but Skivington had his own pair of eights to talk about. “I thought Jack Clement was outstanding tonight, actually. Tom’s a quality player and the more he settles in at Bordeaux the more dangerous he’s going to be, but Clem was outstanding, and Will had a great impact when he came off the bench. Trenners is doing a really good job for us and growing nicely, and Clem was given an opportunity tonight and he really took it.” Clement matched Willis’s 17 carries and led everyone with 107 metres; Trenholm came on and scored twice in four minutes.
Robson, whose season at Pau had him better prepared for UBB than most of the room, got the longest answer of the night. “Dan’s a quality individual. He brings a lot of leadership, a lot of experience, he knows a lot about the French league and Bordeaux, which has been great this week, and we’re really lucky to have him in the building. He left here a long time ago with a bit of unfinished business, I think, in a Gloucester badge; he never wanted to go in the first place. He’s been brilliant from day one, outspoken, working hard, and the lads voted him into the leadership group, which when the players are voting him in is a massive confidence thing. He was brilliant tonight and he nearly put a whole eighty minutes in.”
Barton, who went down with an ankle at 36, stayed on, scored, kicked the half’s last penalty and won a ruck straight after the restart, was the other name. “George was outstanding. He’s tough, and his skill set is growing the more he plays at full-back; he’s becoming that second distributor, he sees space, and his kicking game is very strong, he’s our best kicker in the squad. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked more of him. He’s Gloucester-born and bred; he loves playing here, and they love him.”
On the new bonus system, which needs a side to score three more tries than the opposition and left five apiece worth nothing extra, Skivington was unbothered. “It’s fairly uncomplicated if you’re winning. If you’re losing, it’s quite complicated. We’re coming into this as a new group, and to start worrying about how we get bonus points is the wrong way round; let’s just try and win the games and whatever comes off the back of that, comes. If the permutation was to happen, we’d make decisions upstairs, but as a start point we’re not too focused on it.”
What he was focused on was depth. “We’re definitely deeper than ever in my time here. This week, bringing Clem in for Trenholm, putting Freddie Thomas on the bench, Deian Gwynne coming in, it’s the first time we’ve been in a position to make genuine selection decisions based on minutes played and performance. Our front row did an amazing job, they got on top of Bordeaux, and the more competitive we can be as a squad the better everyone’s going to play.”
Last week at Leicester, he said, had been the frustration; not the loss, which he thought Tigers deserved, but that Gloucester hadn’t put their game on them. Tonight they had. “We put it on Bordeaux. The boys can walk away and go, look, we’re all disappointed we didn’t win, but we’ve shown what we can do when we’re game on. It’s amazing when it’s like that, isn’t it? It’s just unbelievable.” Bath come to Kingsholm next, the biggest fixture of the year at the ground, and Skivington hasn’t mentioned it to the players yet. He will on Monday, after the two dull penalties.