Gloucester put faith in 'some old heads'

IT was typical of Gloucester's season - make that the last couple that when they came up against a front five in last weekend's Challenge Cup final that contained four World Cup winners they were missing three frontline forwards.

- PAUL REES

The Sharks' front row was made up of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Vincent Koch and packing down behind them was Eben Etzebeth, whose sinew-straining tackle on Chris Harris meant Gloucester had nothing to show for a strong opening 10 minutes.

The match turned on the scrum with Gloucester penalised throughout. They were missing loose-head. Val Rapava Ruskin, hooker George McGuigan and lock Matias Alemanno and, as they were left to reflect on a campaign that saw them prioritise two cup competitions after a run of league defeats put a top four finish out of reach, injuries were a recurrent theme.

Key players like Ruan Ackermann, Zach Mercer, Adam Hastings, Santi Carreras, Ruskin, McGuigan, Fraser Balmain and Alemanno all missed chunks of the campaign, centre Mark Atkinson was forced to retire because of a knee injury while Wales wing Louis Rees-Zammit scored four tries in seven starts after returning from the World Cup before being released from his contract to allow him to try and break into American football.

"Perhaps we could have been something without all the injuries," said Ackermann, who has been linked with a move to Japan. "When we are at full strength it is massive because it provides a different edge in training and having everyone available breeds confidence.

"When I came back from injury Europe had just started. We realised that after our start in the Premiership that if we did not change something it could be a very long season and one where we found ourselves going through the motions because we were out of all the competitions.