Gloucester must find 'rhythm' as injury list grows

Wing Josiah Edwards-Giraud has joined Gloucester's growing list of injured players

Gloucester have to "find their rhythm and kick on" after a winless start to the Prem season, director of rugby George Skivington has said.

The Cherry and Whites are enduring their worst start to a Prem season with four losses in their opening four games and just three points on the board.

The team have been ravaged by injuries and had 15 players unavailable for their defeat by Bristol last Friday.

"Not winning a game is not where we wanted to be," Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

"Having as many lads not available to us is not where we want to be, it's scuppered our plans completely.

"We have to find our rhythm and we have kick on at some point - you can't come in and pretend 'don't worry about it, it's all rosy' because we're all competitive animals."

Skivington added: "We're pretty good at being honest about where we're falling short and what we've got to go after but we're also realistic that we have made progress every game, there are a lot of new connections and some of them are starting to show through."

Gloucester travel to Exeter on Saturday in their final league game before a four-week break for the autumn internationals.

Skivington confirmed winger Ben Loader is the latest to be added to the ever-growing list of injured players and will miss the trip to the Chiefs.

The 26-year-old, who joined during the summer, is out for a "lengthy spell" after leaving the field after 40 minutes against the Bears with a hamstring injury.

"He's not going to play in the next few weeks," Skivington said.

"We've got a Prem Cup block coming up now where we'll give some young players opportunity anyway, but he won't be available for this week certainly and we'll have to see how near to the second Prem block we can get him."

Centre Josiah Edwards-Giraud, who has stepped up from the academy to the first team this season and made his Prem debut - featuring from the bench in all four matches - has also been ruled out.

"He's not great either, we've not had his scan results yet so we don't know how bad he is but he's definitely not going to be available for the next few weeks unfortunately because he made a really good impact and he's been great," Skivington said.

Winger Ollie Thorley is also not up for selection after suffering concussion in the act of making a tackle and being carried off on a stretcher in the opening minutes against Bristol.

"[There is a] protocol to go through and he won't be available for Exeter away and we'll have to look after him for a few weeks to get him ready for the next Prem block," Skivington said.