Busy time for Redpath as he signs new deal

On the pitch, Gloucester may be facing an exit from the European Challenge Cup whatever the result against Agen at Kingsholm on Thursday night, but behind the scenes it’s all go for the club, and particularly for coach Bryan Redpath. Busy trying to solve his squad’s occasionally alarming inconsistency, he also has to do battle with agents as he tries to sort out player contracts.

Too many contracts for comfort are due to come to an end when this season winds down, and Redpath says he has offered new deals to all those he feels the club needs to keep for next season.
How they and their representatives will react to those offers, of course, remains to be seen.
The days of a club asking a valued player to stay, making him an offer and him signing on the dotted line are long gone – agents have seen to that.
If only it was was easy as Redpath has found it – he has announced that he has signed a contract taking him to the end of next season, when he will mark three years in charge.
Redpath told the BBC: "I want a strong squad. Offers have been made and those players have decisions to make.
"They've got people to scout round other clubs for them, and it's the same old cat and mouse situation. I think we'll be competitive enough to get good players at this club.
"I've got to try and sell Gloucester in terms of where we've gone over the last 16 months and where we need to be for the next 16 months. Some we'll lose and some will go, but that's the nature of the beast."
The coach appears to be resigned to losing one or two star names, and which of the current crop does move on depends on the offers made by other clubs. There’s also the possibility, of course, that Redpath has made offers to players currently employed elsewhere.
Meanwhile, he has named a strong line-up for the last pool five game, skipper Mike Tindall, James Simpson-Daniel, Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu and Rory Lawson all back in the threes, where Tom Voyce also gets a start.
In the pack, Nick Wood, Akapusi Qera and Scott Lawson return, Will James partners Alex Brown at lock, and in-form Pete Buxton is in the back row with Luke Narraway and Qera.
Hardly a team of fringe players for a game that, on paper, doesn’t matter us much as Redpath would like it to.