Questions asked by Ryan as Glaws lose first game

One match gone, one home defeat – and Gloucester coach Dean Ryan is asking some probing questions of his squad already. After losing 20-8 against Leicester at Kingsholm, Glaws know this was a game they could and should have won to gain revenge for last season’s semi-final defeat at the hands of the Tigers.

Ahead at half-time, Glaws let things slip in the second half and Ryan (right) told the BBC: "I am frustrated, but we know why we lost that game. It is the small things and how we are being distracted that is killing us.
"We should have put the game away - we had the winning of it for 70 minutes. "We have got to look at individuals. Yes, we will win games this season, but whether we can win big games? We've got to find out whether the personalities can take this club forward.”With only one game gone, that last sentence is a telling one – surely Ryan and his fellow coaches felt the squad COULD take Glaws forward this season, otherwise they would have done more during the summer.
So where do we go from here? Well, now that Ryan has asked that question and queried whether his squad is good enough o do more than finish as also-rans, the ball is in the players’ court.
Toby Flood marked his Tigers debut by kicking them into a 6-0 lead, but Ryan Lamb kicked a penalty and Olly Morgan’s try gave Glaws an 8-6 lead at half-time.
But Glaws, who had already missed out on a handful of kickable points, threw away a try-scoring overlap chance and converted tries by Geordan Murphy and Flood wrapped up the win for the Tigers.

Only 13,106 watched the game, all of them – apart from the travelling Tigers – going home disappointed yet again.
There’s a long way to go yet, but results like this and the play-off setback at the end of last season put a question mark against Gloucester's big-match temperament.
The result is bad, the reason for it is a lot worse - it's a worrying start to the season.