Gloucester defend ‘excellent manager’ George Skivington after 90-0 humiliation

Gloucester defended manager George Skivington after the club record 90–0 defeat to Northampton Saintsadding that his future is not up for discussion.

Skivington has a contract until the end of next season, having joined the club midway through the 2019-20 campaign. Since then, Gloucester have finished seventh, 10th, fifth and 11th in the league, and are currently ninth in the Premiership, having won just four of their 17 league games this season.

However, the club reached two cup finals in an unusual campaign, winning the Premiership Rugby Cup in March and facing the Sharks in the Challenge Cup final later this month at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

With nothing to play for in the Premiership, 13 points behind eighth-placed Leicester Tigers, Gloucester opted to send a weakened side to the league leaders Northampton, making 12 changes, paid the price. The record defeat surpassed the 57-0 defeat to Leinster in 2022.

Speaking to BBC Radio Gloucestershire, the club’s chief executive Alex Brown described Skivington as an “excellent coach”, adding that he understood the “frustration” with the team’s performance against Northampton.

“It’s never as simple as ‘change will fix things.’ I think we have to look at this as a whole and we will do that over the summer,” Brown said. “We have a busy two weeks – we have to get this European final right. We’ll have a review, but next season George is under contract and I’m not going to talk about suggestions for anything [to do] with your job.

“I can say that George is an excellent coach and the group that surrounds him, the coaching staff, is also equally excellent. We have work to do to ensure there is pride in the jersey. I don’t think we saw some of those parts over the weekend and we have to address that for sure.”

Brown added that Gloucester’s depth has been an issue beyond the first team, while also emphasizing that the club needs to get more out of the players available.

“We are trying to run the club sustainably and that brings with it its challenges,” Brown added. “The first XV on paper is a competitive team – the team behind that, we need to address that and look at that over the off-season and see if we can improve on that. We just need to get more out of the team within the restrictions we have.”

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