Western Daily Press

Skivington: Thrashing was extremely painful

GEORGE Skivington admitted that Gloucester’s 90-0 hammering at the hands of Premiershi­p leaders Northampto­n on Saturday was “extremely painful”.

The Cherry & Whites named an inexperien­ced line-up in order to keep their big names fresh for their European Challenge Cup final date later this month, and were consequent­ly demolished by a Saints side that ran in 14 tries.

Ollie Sleighthol­me scored a hattrick for the hosts, whose other tries came from George Furbank, Fraser Dingwall, Curtis Langdon (2), Alex Mitchell, Alex Waller, Sam Matavesi (2), Emmanuel Iyogun, Alex Moon and Tom James.

Director of rugby Skivington, pictured, said: “I thought there might be a heavy scoreline today when I saw the team they selected.

“I knew momentum would go against us at some point and it would be hard to recover, but that was extremely painful.

“I thought Saints were absolutely ruthless. They were brilliant today and our young lads just couldn’t find traction, couldn’t find their way out of it, couldn’t get anything going in the game. And Saints’ defence, whenever we did get a little bit of momentum, turned the ball over and took it off us.

“It was always going to be a tough day, but we came with the

NORTHAMPTO­N ............ 90 GLOUCESTER ................... 0

approach we came with. I can’t moan too much about it, albeit we won’t be brushing this off either.

“There were lads who showed what they could do and there were others who showed they’re well off the pace in the Premiershi­p.”

Northampto­n: Furbank; Hendy, Freeman, Dingwall, Sleighthol­me; F Smith, Mitchell; A. Waller, Langdon, Davison, Moon, Coles, Lawes, Scott-Young, Augustus. Replacemen­ts: Seabrook for Hendy (41), Iyogun for A Waller (48), Millar-Mills for Davison (41), Graham for Lawes (51), S Matavesi for Langdon (48), Mayanavanu­a for Coles (62), James for Mitchell (57), Odendaal for Smith (53).

Scorers – Tries: Furbank, Dingwall, Sleighthol­me 3, Langdon 2, Mitchell, A Waller, S Matavesi 2, Iyogun, Moon, James. Cons: F Smith 8, Furbank 2. Gloucester: Hathaway; Hearle, Hillman-Cooper, Reeves, Morris; C Atkinson, S Varney; Elrington, Socino, Knight, Clark, Thomas, Tuisue, Ludlow, Clement. Replacemen­ts: I Jones for C Atkinson (72), Scarfe for Socino (41), Balmain for Knight (41), Eite for Ludlow (41), Vivas for Elrington (30), Nixon for Tuisue (57), Chapman for Varney (51), Adderley-Jones for Hillman-Cooper (53).

Sin Bin: Morris (53).

Referee: Ian Tempest (RFU).