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ALEX SANDERSON MEDIA SESSION AHEAD OF GLOUCESTER GAME


RETURNING INTERNATIONALS


“All are available to play. Lions players are not.”


NEW CLUB CAPTAIN ERNST VAN RHYN


“Your captain has to exemplify not the strategic capabilities of the group but the values that underpin what you are about. Ernie does that; boundless energy, unparalleled positivity but that does not detract from how good a job Ben Curry has done. Where Ben is now compared to where he was two years ago is totally different for him. He recognises that and understands what is best for the group is someone who is able to drive those standards consistently in and out of international windows and he is unable to do that. With that being said, I do not think it is a bad thing to rotate leadership. We have a group of six or seven who could easily wear the armbands. The captaincy falls on very good shoulders in Ernie and it went down very well with the group.


“You want the players to be the best they can be. I want them to reach their ambitions and dreams. Ernie is more than capable of playing international rugby. South Africa have such strength in depth in the second and back row, they have such unbelievable depth that it makes it very hard to break into the South African squad in that area.


“The easiest thing to do is maintain the status quo as it has been working for us. Ben has to focus on the World Cup as well; I want him to do that and I want him to win a World Cup and a Premiership. It was off the back of a conversation with him. I did not make the decision until I spoke with him and it was him saying it was probably time for a change. That is how it went. I did not speak to Ernie until I sat down with Ben. That was the main driving influence was Ben’s maturity in the situation on reflection that it was probably time. That then gave me the conviction to do it.”


TARGETS FOR THE SEASON


“There is quite a lot we want to achieve. I feel a debt to the hardcore fanbase because they have supported us each year and I have told them each year we are going for it only to fall a bit short. I want to repay a bit of that. I am tight with our owners so I do not want to waste any of their money and resources. I would really like to do something special for them. There is a sense of failure because we have not achieved what we are capable of achieving. I do not think we have been at our best when the moment has required it. That is what I am desperate for now, what I am willing to scrap tooth and nail for is to make good on the talent we have in the building and be good on our words.


"We have spoken in the pre-season about how we can take the next step. The talking is done and now it is ‘Can we be good on our words?’. Then I will be satisfied. If we have prepared individually and collectively for what is right for the team then the outcomes will look after themselves. We have dived deep into every individual’s personal motivations. We have had conversations around team identity.”


BENEFITS OF THE PLAYERS WHO WERE ON THE ENGLAND SUMMER TOUR


“There was a marked difference from last year to this year with the confidence they had coming back in and how buzzing they were, how they say themselves in the England squad looking forward to the World Cup. They enjoyed it, winning helps. The international management group got it right, with Byron [McGuigan] and Lee [Blackett] on tour which would have helped. It is really beneficial and that is when it works at its best, when they come back better players and more motivated.”


CHANGES TO THE COACHING STAFF


“You are always under some kind of parole, a length of contract if you are honest with yourself does not offer you that much security in professional sport. If you have a really bad season you are out on your ear, there is always someone waiting in the wings. That is the reality of it. The last couple of years there have been parts of the season where performances have been massively under par, with a good squad that is just not acceptable. At those points as a director of rugby you have to look at what the succession plan looks like from a coaching perspective, not just a player one.


“There is always someone in the wings but the people I have right now with the coaches, the ones I am backing and will back. There are two people within this coaching department who want to be better directors of rugby than I do. My job is to make them better, Marco [Bortolami] wants to be better than me and so does Joe [Ford]. They both want that kind of succession plan. I want that challenge. Marco is there to challenge me with the experience he has got. He brings a specialist expertise in the second row for the likes of Ben Bamber and Tom Burrow coming through. He is a psychological-led coach, so he helps share that load with me. He is a beg help there.


"Joe was a really young DOR at Doncaster in the Championship so he has got that bi-picture perspective and understands the help I need. Returning to being an attacking coach allows him to focus on an area he is absolutely brilliant at. He brings with him the intellectual property of his family, the Ford coaching empire. We have gelled well and there is good cohesion.


"We went to Toulouse after we lost to them. They wanted us in as they saw something in us and they reckon we have the potential to be a really good team. They wanted that relationship which will continue. What we found in their environment was their co-coaching was far better than ours. At times there is a want and desire for every coach to get their pound of flesh whereas in Toulouse they were very happy to let other coaches coach areas of their department because they were so aligned in terms of their methodology and language. This is the way we want to go, a non-hierarchal coaching structure which will shift and change depending on who is leading the session but everyone has a role to play in it. A star shape structure, like they have at Apple.”


TOM CURRY’S PROGRESS IN HIS REHAB


“Tom is brilliant. He was out there the other day running around. He is contributing in meetings and is very present. We are going to miss him on the field at the weekend but you would not guess he is not playing. He is contributing on a daily basis.”


Unlikely to play before Autumn Internationals, Phil Morrow from the RFU is coming up at the end of the month to talk through the plan for potentially Tom being rested a little more by England, not playing more than three or four weeks on the bounce

 

Dan du Preez out with a calf injury, not bad at all


Gloucester enjoy high turnover, high transitional, high ball-in-play


Al looking for an evolution of not being quite as pragmatic as we were at the start of last season and leaning more into how we played at the end of last season

 
 
 

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