Glaws aim to rediscover family spirit

There have been a lot of comings and goings at Gloucester this summer, with major changes in the corridors of power, in the coaching staff and in the playing squad ... but perhaps the most encouraging aspect of pre-season training is what appears, on the face of it, to be a throwaway comment from new coach Nigel Davies.

He says that he aims to build a strong family bond which will serve the squad through a gruelling season.

That will come as music to the ears of those fans who felt that in the last season or two the pride of playing in cherry and white has disappeared and that Glaws have become just another Premiership team.

In other words, also-rans.

At international level, it’s widely accepted that Wales punch so far above their weight not just because they currently have a great crop of talent at their disposal, but also because they play with a huge amount of national pride.

It’s that sort of attitude Davies wants from his squad at club level, and he believes the ten-day training camp in the French ski resort of Tignes will get the ball rolling.

He told the Citizen: "It's absolutely vital to go through team building exercises. This group has to be a family, they have to act and react like a family, and look after each other.

"And to do that they have to have a very good feel for each other.

“The aim is to come back from Tignes with a powerful bond as a unit, and return to Kingsholm as a family.

"We've got to care about each other and about our ambitions and challenges right up to that level, there's nothing else for it.

"If we can't do that, we can't succeed.

"But in everything I have seen from the squad and the new set-up so far, I'm very confident that we will generate that kind of atmosphere."

Let’s hope he’s right, because even from the stands it’s been fairly obvious at times in recent seasons that the atmosphere he is talking about has been missing, and that could go a long way towards explain the team’s awful away record.