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Zach Mercer challenged by boss to win over Steve Borthwick in final
By Chris Jones
Gloucester boss George Skivington believes the uniquely talented Zach Mercer can use Gloucester’s European Challenge Cup final with the South African Sharks at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Friday to secure a place in England’s summer tour squad for tests with New Zealand and Japan.
Mercer scored Gloucester’s first try in their 54-14 final Gallagher Premiership match victory over Newcastle Falcons on Saturday and received the club’s player of the season award to highlight the impact he has made since arriving from Montpellier last summer.
The 26-year-old won the last of his two caps in 2018 and has not been picked by England boss Steve Borthwick since returning from France but Skivington is confident his ball-playing No8’s “unique” skills can bring him more international recognition this summer.
Skivington said: “All of the players involved in those games have a chance to show (England) what they can do. Zach is unique and there isn’t anyone in the Premiership who can do what he can do. It depends what Steve wants to do with the tour and it is a competitive position.
“Zach is right on the edge and whenever I speak to Steve he is right in the picture and is right in the conversation – he is not being dismissed. It will probably be about how players go and the big games over the next two weeks and every game from now on is a big game.”
Outside half Charlie Atkinson has had the goal kicking taken away to allow him to concentrate on other areas of his game and he is pressing Adam Hastings for the starting No10 jersey. The goal-kicking has been accepted by scrum-half Caolan Englefield who is revelling in the responsibility and fired over five conversions from all angles in the win over Newcastle.
Skivington explained: “Caolan is a brilliant kicker and from Charlie's point of view he hasn’t been happy with the way his goal-kicking has been going and we said he should park that for a while. Charlie actually lives with Caolan and told he could have the kicking duties for a while and it does take that weight off him. Charlie is a good kicker but has got into a little bit of a rut.”
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Latest Comments
They also use a far more consistent scale.
Rugby pass seem to have a different scale for each player based on the authors expectations or how much he likes them.
Can't fathom how Moodie and Reece both were a 3.
Go to commentsYes for sure, thanks for sharing. I fully understand that both parties are better off, no one needs to lose, neither competition suffers, in fact both can be better as a result.
Too many true rugby fans (and analysts) don't understand that.
I wouldn't imagine there is a date aye. It was a long decline rugby in SA and Australia was going through, and was so bad it even effected NZ, caused them to argue to can a couple of teams. The nation of SA probably grew into it? I know I watch more of the NH now specifically because of the SR teams playing there. I actually had to mention to Nick Bishop (because of his stubborn perspective) the other day that I've never been a fan of Super Rugby, I don't think they chose the right way to go about professionalism back in 1995. Unfortunately, NZR was stuck between a rock and a hard place, because it had SA's and Australians that ran their unions by States, so we had to separate into "two or three" teams as a result. Our game is in the kak now because of it, they want to kill off the lifeblood of our National Provincial Championship. But now we might see a way out of it, so it's all good.
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