Skivington makes 10 Gloucester changes after their 0-90 humiliation

George Skivington has reacted to last weekend’s humiliation at Northampton by making 10 changes to the Gloucester starting team for this Saturday’s home fixture against the winless Newcastle.

The Cherry and Whites were blown away by 14 tries at Franklin’s Gardens, the 0-90 loss igniting massive criticism about the coach.

However, he fronted up to the media last Tuesday and insisted that sending an understrength side to the home of the Gallagher Premiership leaders was the correct course of action for Gloucester.

They had won a hard-fought EPCR Challenge Cup semi-final the previous weekend versus Benetton and the priority was the upcoming May 24 final versus the Sharks at Tottenham, not throwing everything into their last away game in an underwhelming 2023/24 league campaign where they had been tailed off in ninth place.

He explained his team would be stronger versus the Falcons in preparation for the cup final and his selection sees just five of the same starters from the Northampton hammering.

With the likes of Jonny May, Ruan Ackermann and Zach Mercer restored to the XV, the retained starters are Josh Hathaway, Charlie Atkinson, Freddie Clarke, Freddie Thomas, and skipper Lewis Ludlow.

All eight of their bench against Newcastle consists of players who started at Northampton, but midfielders Jack Reeves and Louis Hillman-Cooper, who paired up at Franklin’s, are excluded from the match day 23. Chris Harris and Seb Atkinson are instead the round 18 centres.

GLOUCESTER (vs Newcastle): 15. Josh Hathaway; 14. Jonny May, 13. Chris Harris, 12. Seb Atkinson, 11. Ollie Thorley; 10. Charlie Atkinson, 9. Caolan Englefield; 1. Jamal Ford-Robinson, 2. Seb Blake, 3. Kirill Gotovtsev, 4. Freddie Clarke, 5. Freddie Thomas, 6. Ruan Ackermann, 7. Lewis Ludlow (capt), 8. Zach Mercer. Reps: 16. Santi Socino, 17. Mayco Vivas, 18. Ciaran Knight, 19. Albert Tuisue, 20. Jack Clement, 21. Stephen Varney, 22. Alex Hearle, 23. Jake Morris.