Problems galore for Glaws

Bryan redpath declared himself "very disappointed" with Gloucester's single-point home defeat at the hands of London welsh in their first pre-season friendly. He hopefully expressed himself in more colourful terms in the privacy of the dressing room.  

Because a few players appear to need a kick up the backside - losing at Kingsholm is bad, friendly or not, but losing from a winning position against a team from some way down the game’s ladder in England is a lot worse.

Redpath admitted it would be a case of back to the drawing board for him and his players after a defeat brought about by costly errors.

“Our 80 minutes was poor,” he told the club website. “But that’s life and in a way it’s good to get that under our belt and out of the way. At 23-10 we should have kicked on and won the game, but we didn’t handle it well.

“There were too many basic handling errors – we have to be very honest with each other and admit that isn’t acceptable.

“We need to be in a position where we can’t wait for the next game to put things right, and that comes against Russia next Friday.”

Who scored and when matters little … what does matter is that Glaws looked a poor side, even allowing for rust, absences, injuries, inexperience and any other excuse that can be unearthed.

London Welsh are not a bad side and ran London Irish close last week, but they are not a Premiership team and Glaws need to be better than this in so many ways.

The consolation is that pre-season games exist to sort out any problems there might be … Glaws need to act on what we saw in this game.