George Skivington: Gloucester 'disappointed' after three losses, says head coach

Gloucester have now lost four Premiership matches this season to leave them seventh in the table

Head coach George Skivington said there is a lot of "hurt" in the Gloucester team after three consecutive Premiership losses.

Gloucester have fallen to defeats by Sale, Newcastle and Harlequins in November and are seventh in the table.

They next face Northampton at Kingsholm on Saturday in the league and Exeter in the Premiership Rugby Cup on Sunday.

"We are disappointed, there is a lot of hurt in the camp right now," Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

"This autumn period hasn't been very kind to us but there's reasons for that.

"I think the best thing you can do is be honest as a group, review the game very honestly, make sure everybody understands what happens in the Premiership if you lose a couple of games and the context around that.

"But then you've got to move on roll your sleeves up and try and be better at what you've got to improve on."

Gloucester had started the season well, going unbeaten in October, before the run of losses.

Yet in their three recent matches they repeatedly conceded a host of tries early on, falling 14-0 down to Sale and Quins inside 15 minutes and just failing to fight back from being 24-0 down against the Falcons.

"I'm not concerned by any lack of motivation or anything like that," Skivington said.

"It's more the reality of you've got to address the issues and we've had a few similar issues three games on the trot now and that's got to change."

Gloucester were without a number of first-choice players through November due to the autumn internationals and Skivington said other players stepping in had been on a learning curve.

"I don't think it's complacency, certainly some younger players have learnt some serious lessons over this autumn period that's for sure, we can't get away from that," he added.

"Good and bad lessons, they've all fought unbelievably hard but possibly the shock of the intensity of the Premiership has caught us a little bit.

"I think there's some poor mistakes and some poor execution early in our game plan and that's something we are very honest about as a group."

Gloucester will remain without fly-half Adam Hastings for the next few weeks after he sustained a knee injury on international duty with Scotland.

However they have been handed a boost after winger Louis Rees-Zammit was helped off the pitch with an injury in the closing moments of the defeat by Harlequins.

"Hasto is coming along, he's not quite there yet. Thankfully Zam's bang wasn't as bad as we thought it was on the day," Skivington continued.