The Cherry and Whites lost 26-15 to Exeter Chiefs on Friday night and the score could have been much worse if it wasn’t for two late tries from replacement Jake Polledri and teenage sensation Louis Rees-Zammit.
Gloucester Head Coach, Johan Ackermann has re-iterated his frustration with his sides ill-discipline that has arguably cost them on multiple occasions this season.
Embed from Getty ImagesTo the boys, we cannot iterate that enough, we show them that we lost in the discipline stats, we told them that it is unnecessary so don’t go into the breakdowns, we have been hammering it over and over and it is now the individuals and as a team they have to start making better decisions at that breakdown.
Gloucester have currently conceded 108 penalties in the Gallagher Premiership and worryingly for them, top the unnerving statistic. Many of those penalties have costed the Cherry and Whites on the scoreboard, but Ackermann insists that it is individual errors rather than a team effort.
I think it is individual decisions. Penalties that we gave away, individuals felt that they were correct and the referee was wrong and obviously, it wasn’t that way so it is just individuals that must make better decisions at breakdown.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsYou can see why they are top of the league. Outstanding physicality from Exeter. Their try was extremely dominant from the line out and they pushed Gloucester back from a 5m scrum #GLOvEXE
— Katy Homewood (@_katyhomewood) February 14, 2020
Interestingly, Exeter conceded more penalties on Friday night (9) than Gloucester (8), but the visitors took any points that were on offer when the opportunity came their way. Late in the second half, Gloucester conceded three consecutive penalties within seven minutes all from relatively the same area of the pitch and Exeter benefited on the scoreboard.
The thing is, because we are aware of the penalties and make a point of that. It is the individual that goes out of that system if he does get penalised. If you have a referee that is so pedantic on calls then just stay out of the breakdown so that he cannot make that call.
Gloucester have London Irish to prepare for this week as they travel to the Madejski Stadium on Saturday and will look to work on their discipline as Irish currently sit eighth in the Gallagher Premiership table and come into the game off the back of a convincing away win against Harlequins.
The Openside 