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George Skivington: 'Lewis Ludlow has wanted to take my head off'
By Chris Jones
Gloucester boss George Skivington has revealed how former England skipper Lewis Ludlow wants to “take my head off” after the recent double blow of being dropped and losing the Kingsholm captaincy to Wales scrum-half Tomos Williams.
Ludlow, who has captained Gloucester since 2020, has played more than 200 games for the Cherry and Whites and would expect to lead the team out against arch rivals Bath next Saturday in the Gallagher Premiership, but his fall from grace has instead left him frustrated on the sidelines.
The 30-year-old played in the opening day defeat to Saracens and then made way for young flanker Harry Taylor for the win over Bristol and last weekend’s loss to Sale which saw the west country club pick up two bonus points.
Ludlow is desperate to regain lost ground and has made this abundantly clear to Skivington, who has some tough selection calls to make with Argentina international Santiago Carreras now available to join a back line that is delivering eye-catching tries.
Half-backs Williams and Gareth Anscombe have been impressive, but the team will be without England wing Christian Wade for round four after he picked up a rib cartilage injury at Sale.
Skivington said: “Lewis has wanted to take my head off for two weeks but he has had to swallow it. We have a good relationship. He is great leader who lives and breathes Gloucester, so he would play every game if he could.
“He will be back in the team at some point and it is tough if you are captain of the club and get left out for a couple of weeks. There is no dancing around that and he has definitely been giving me daggers every time I have walked past him.
“Mondays for me are very uncomfortable and I have a long list of people I have to find and have conversations with. They are p***ed off and I’m exhausted – and that is healthy. I don’t think we had enough of that last year. The way we are going to play will test everyone and you are going to have to be on it.
“Lewis will say his Saracens game wasn’t the level I expect from him and I made the decision to go Bristol with something different. Harry backed it up and then went to Sale. Look, this season the back row is really competitive and we are now in a position where we have great competition in the back five. Lewis has all my respect and it is a tough decision to leave him out.”
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If your B Team beat our B Team, then yes, your B Team is better than our B Team.
But to to draw the conclusion that your B Team is better than our B Team because your B Team beat another team is childish.
Go to commentsRazor does have a conundrum - Will Jordan scores tries! The majority of his AB career has been wing, but his favoured position is Full Back. Is Will Jordan an exceptional fullback? The answer is probably NO. He's not especially good under the high ball. He's not especially good kicking out of defense. And he's not an especially good tackler or last defender. But he does score tries!
However, I believe Razor is being myopic in his team selections and game plan. This year was the year to try different things. Everyone would accept losses this year if he was really trying different combos
But in reality he's not... I think Ioane is an amazing winger. He's a good defender at center but he creates nothing at center because for 3 years now his passing and distrubution skills have remained poor. But Razor persists and doesn't give Proctor a chance. The problem is compounded for our centers because Jordie is not a good distributor either - so in the end the ball rarely gets to the wing unless DMAC does a cross field kick. Jordie and/or Reiko bashing the ball up is just so damn predictable.
Scooter is a good player, but after 9 games his leadership must be under question. Furthermore in the 7 games he has captained, I believe the leadership burden has affected his game.
Is Scooter a world class 4 - absolutley not. But unlike Rassie who converted PSDT to the blindside role - Razor has not contemplated doing the same with Scooter.
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