Positives in defeat for Glaws - but not enough

It was a case of what might have been for Gloucester as they had to be satisfied with a losing bonus point from their 35-29 defeat against Harlequins at the Stoop – might they have done better if Nicky Robinson had played from the start and might they have done better if some strange refereeing decisions had gone their way instead of against them?

However, there is no disguising the basic fact – Glaws lost because they didn’t play well enough to win over the whole 80 minutes.
There were positives in the game, yes, but there were also too many negatives, especially in the 20-minute spell in the middle of the match when Quins scored the points which eventually saw them home.
The forwards did the business and the backs did enough to suggest that winning form is in their somewhere – perhaps when some of the many absentees are back in the fold.
Young Freddie Burns, the hero last week, missed a handful of kickable points, but he can’t be blamed for the result – all kickers miss points from time to time.
Glaws coach Bryan Redpath told the BBC: "I was happy with a lot of things, but unhappy with some of the one-on-one situations where we made mistakes.
"You have to be careful what you say about officials these days. But I was not happy with some of what happened, to both teams. I don't think it was of the right standard."
Redpath does, indeed, need to be careful as a creeping form of sports censorship prevents the people who dictate how their teams play (the coaches) from expressing honest opinions on the performances of the people who dictate how a game is played (the match officials).
However, there’s nothing to stop observers from bemoaning the poor standard of officiating that ruins so many matches nowadays.
Gareth Delve’s try gave Glaws an early lead, and two more from Charlie Sharples kept them in touch in a high-scoring, end-to-end game. But crucially Quins scored one more try and the fact that three of theirs were converted to only one of Glaws made a difference.