Gloucester CEO's mixed response to calls for George Skivington sacking

Gloucester CEO Alex Brown has responded to calls from Gloucester fans for head coach George Skivington to be sacked by saying he "absolutely right now" has the club's backing.

The Cherry and Whites reached the nadir of their season on Saturday by falling to a humiliating 90-0 to Gallagher Premiership leaders Northampton Saints at Franklin's Gardens, something Brown has apologised to the club's fans for.

The result against Saints was the latest turn in a strange season for Gloucester, where they have already won the Premiership Rugby Cup, have booked their place in the Challenge Cup final, but are equally languishing in ninth place in the league with only four wins.

Speaking on BBC Radio Gloucestershire this week after the Saints game, Brown did say that fans had to "take this game in context" as Gloucester had one eye on the final on May 24 and had rested plenty of players. On top of that, they were playing the "best-attacking team in the country".

But it is the nature of the loss that has caused such rancour in the West Country and discontent.

Brown defended his head coach though, describing him and his coaching team as "excellent".

"I've been involved in club rugby and this club for a long time, and I can say that George is an excellent coach," the former England lock said.

"I can hand on my heart say that he is an excellent coach and the group around him, the coaching staff around him, are also equally excellent.

"I can understand their frustration with team performance but having been around the sport for a long time, it's never ever quite as simple as change will fix things."

While Brown is clearly showing his support for Skivington for the rest of the season, he was slightly less committal when looking ahead to next season, and emphasised that there will be a review at the end of the current campaign.

"I think we will look at it as a whole, and we will do that review over the course of the summer, but I'll go back to my point that George is an excellent coach.

"We're going to have the review of course, but going into next season George is under contract, I'm not going to talk about suggestions on anything with his employment."

Gloucester host the winless Newcastle Falcons on Saturday in the final round of the Premiership season, who will view that game as their greatest opportunity to register their first victory.