Darren Crompton chats before the Wasps game

Darren Crompton
By Duncan Wood
September 5 2002

Having given the new Bristol Shoguns team coach his seal of approval, Darren Crompton answered a few questions ahead of Sunday's league match against Wasps at Wycombe.

It’s been a few days since the Saracens game, what have you been working in training this week?

We’ve been doing quite a lot of defence and a lot of structure work really, backs attacking forwards which is what happened at the weekend. A few boys missed a couple of tackles and it’s just a question of getting everything in place so that doesn’t happen again.

Obviously everyone concedes a few tries but to have that many scored against you isn’t nice.

It was revealed in the Evening Post last week that you’re currently the number one loose head. How much of a boost to your confidence has that been?

It’s great. There’s great competition across the squad if you look at the back row and centres for example. In fact, if you look at all the positions, there are a lot of boys available in those areas. It’s the same at prop. There’s Paul Johnstone, there’s Emi and there’s a lot of young guys like Richard Skuse.

Everyone wants to play and it’s nice to be named in the team. You sit around waiting for the team to be named and when you do hear your own name and you know you’re playing then obviously it is a boost.

Jonno’s been away and he’s going to come back even stronger. There’s a lot of competition but there’s a lot of games this year as well so I think a lot of players will be used.

Do you think there’ll be any changes to the game plan this Sunday?

No, no. I think everything is good. We’ve had to work on a few things and tweak a few things. I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully, with what happened at the weekend, everyone is going to be that much more hungry this weekend. It just wasn’t the start to the season we wanted.

Is the spirit in the camp good?

Yeah, it's very good. All the boys are pretty keen. Ross was in the press this week talking about it and all the boys feel the same. We want to have a big year and build on last year and it wasn't nice to start like that. It's frustrating for everyone, the fans and the players. We knew how well we were playing at the end of the season and we just want to get that back.

How much of a boost has been the announcement of Daryl Gibson's signing this week?

Well (laughs), he's another centre and we've got lots of centres as it is! But I've seen him play and he's a world class player and I'm sure he's going to have a great time over here and fit in with the boys. I'm sure he knows Peter from the past, I'm sure he'll do well and it'll be good to have someone of that calibre around.