Glaws kicked out of LV= by exiles
BR - gutted
By Cherry Picker
February 5 2012
Now they can concentrate on the league - it's a somewhat desperate consolation every time a team is knocked out of a cup competition, but it's almost all Gloucester have to cling to after giving up the LV= Cup they won last season in a 23-15 defeat at London Irish.
It wasn’t the only consolation they got from the game, two second-half tries for teenage speed merchant Ian Clark providing a bright spot as the cherry and whites bade farewell to the competition.
Like most team sports, success in rugby union is probably based more on pace than on any other quality, and Clark – with 21 tries in 14 games for Hartpury this season – clearly has it by the bucketful.
But after trailing 14-0 at half-time Glaws didn’t quite have enough to clinch the win or the bonus point they needed, missing out on two great scoring chances when they had the home team on the ropes.
With 12 international missing, Mike Tindall did well at fly-half and there could be no complaints over the team effort, but the guile that’s needed was missing and Irish just had enough against a side full of promise but short on experience. Six penalties from Tom Homer did the damage for the home team.
“That was one that got away,” coach Bryan Redpath told the club website. “We had chances to win the game and rhere was a lot of endeavour. But not enough clear-cut decision-making.
“When you have players out of position, it sometimes show how difficult it can be to play there. Mike didn’t kick at times when he should have, but we knew it was going to be difficult.
“Ian Clark did everything that was asked of him and it’s good to see a young boy go out there and perform.
“But I’m gutted to be out of the LV=, because we could have won and we could have scored the four tries that would have given us a bonus point.
Next week it’s back to the Premiership as Northampton visit Kingsholm, and with the Six Nations in full swing both teams will have their talent pool given a thorough inspection.
As Redpath says: “The next four games are enormous for us.”