Gloucester building to 'do damage' next season

Full-back Josh Hathaway has broken into the Gloucester team this season and scored a hat-trick in the defeat by Saracens

Gloucester will continue to rotate their squad for the rest of the Premiership campaign with the aim of being able to "do some damage" next season, says director of rugby George Skivington.

The Cherry and Whites are ninth in the table with three games remaining and already well out of the running for a top four place.

Skivington made 10 changes for the 46-24 defeat by Saracens last week.

"You've got to manage smart, you've got to expose people at the right time, you've got to take these opportunities while they're on offer," he told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

"At the start of next season we want to do some damage in the Premiership and there's no point trying to throw people in the deep end at that point.

"We want to be in a position to compete week-to-week and I think there is an opportunity for us in the back end of this season to make sure we're in a position with a whole squad to do that next year."

George Skivington was appointed director of rugby in September 2023

While Gloucester won a first trophy in nine years in March with the Premiership Rugby Cup and remain in the fight for a second, with a European Challenge Cup semi-final to come against Benetton on 4 May, they have struggled in the league.

A club-record nine consecutive losses through October to January all-but ended their chances of reaching the play-offs and they could finish in the bottom two for the second consecutive season.

"Ultimately the club wants to be successful and we recognise we are where we are now so it's really important there's some things we're building for now," Skivington said.

"There's still a lot of pride. I know we can't particularly climb the table and look very different but everybody who takes the field in however many [matches] we're lucky enough to have will be fighting for shirts now, shirts in the future.

"They're aware of that."

Gloucester could look a significantly different team next season with Wales scrum-half and fly-half Tomos Williams and Gareth Anscombe and Racing 92 winger Christian Wade among those moving to Kingsholm.

The club has also not commented on whether former England winger Jonny May will stay next season.

Speaking on the The Good the Bad and the Rugby podcast this week, May said it was "unlikely" he would be Gloucester.