Skivington and Booth react to Gloucester Challenge Cup win over Ospreys

Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington praised his side’s defence as they recorded a deserved 23-13 victory over Ospreys at Kingsholm in an attritional contest to secure a home semi-final in the European Challenge Cup.

Benetton or Connacht will be their opponents on the first weekend in May but an improved performance will be needed if they are to progress to the final.

Santiago Carreras kicked six penalties for them with hooker Seb Blake scoring their only try to reward a pack who shaded the forward battle by placing Ospreys under pressure in both scrum and line-out.

Keelan Giles scored an excellent try for Ospreys with former Gloucester player Owen Williams adding two penalties and a conversion but they will rue their ill-discipline on the night as they were penalised at will by French referee Pierre Brousset.

Skivington said: “After missing so many tackles in our league fixture against Bristol, we’ve had a big focus on our defence in the last two weeks so I’m really pleased at how we went in that area.

“We knew Ospreys would go hard at the breakdown and they got into us early on and caught us on the counter with an excellent try.

“Despite it being only 14-13 at the interval, we were happy we were doing the right things but overall we weren’t accurate enough.

“We are lucky to have secured a number of knock-out games at home so far this season and the more we bring to Kingsholm the better.”

Gloucester number eight Zach Mercer added: “I have had a chest infection all week but I knew I had to get out there as it’s all we’ve got left to play for this season.

“If we can win this competition to add to our Premiership Cup success then it will still be a decent season with two trophies despite what’s happened in the Premiership.

“We had a lot of injuries early on to key players, Adam Hastings, Ruan Ackermann, and Val Rapava-Ruskin so it took some time for us to click.

“Tonight we got the scoreboard ticking over but we need to be a lot better by taking our chances.”

Ospreys head coach Toby Booth was frustrated with his side’s performance.

He said: “Gloucester deserved to win but I’m bitterly disappointed and frustrated by elements of our performance.

“We didn’t stand up as well as we should as we had an opportunity to move forward in this competition and didn’t take it.

“We weren’t as good as we could have been and needed to control the environment better as some of our offsides were needless.

“They got seven to 10 points in front and when that happens it’s difficult to claw back as they continued to squeeze us and we couldn’t break it.”