Glaws season hits rock bottom

A year and two months after they last won an away game, struggling Newcastle Falcons arrived at Kingsholm to stage a clear demonstration that Gloucester are not as good a team as many on the terraces - and in the dressing room - perhaps beliueve they are.

Losing 29-20 to a team many feel are already relegated is bad enough, but actually DESERVING to lose is far, far worse.

It was the first time Newcastle have won at Kingsholm for 14 years, and they got the result because they appeared to want it more than the cherry and whites did. It seems a long time since Glkaws thrashed the Falcons in last season’s LV= Cup Final.

Ally Hogg’s try helped the Falcons build up a 19-6 lead at the break, two penalties from Freddie Burns all Glaws could muster in reply.

Akapusi Qera’s try and more Burns pens turned the game over and there was a 20-19 home lead for a time, before Jimmy Gopperth took his tally to seven successful kicks and Mark Wilson scored a second away try. Once again, Glaws blew it on the last lap.

The result hardly does Gloucester’s Heineken Cup qualification hopes any good and the performance doesn’t exactly look good on Bryan Redpath’s CV as he is linked with the vacancy at Sale.

Redpath admitted to the club website: “We have not made it hard for them to beat us and today was hugely disappointing.

“It wasn’t a case if missed chances – we have come up against a side that was desperate and we have made it pretty easy for them. But to be leading with seven minutes to go after turning the game round and then to lose is hard to take.”

Redpath had said before the game that his team needed to win back the fans, but instead they lost a lot more of them and his body language in his post-match interviews and the brevity of his replies when questioned suggested he was a lot more angry than he was showing.

And he has every right to be – the players let him and the fans down with a rubbish performance.

If they don’t improve against Sale in the last home game next week, more questions will be asked by people thinking of buying season tickets and perhaps even by the powers that be who run the club.