Murray Kinsella Reports from Páirc Uí Chaoimh

GLOUCESTER DIRECTOR OF rugby George Skivington said the English club have to contend with the “reality” of managing their squad after he picked a weakened side for tonight’s 31-3 defeat to Munster in Cork.

The Premiership side left frontline players like Tomos Williams, Ross Byrne, Ollie Thorley, Seb Atkinson, and Matías Alemanno out of their selection as they completely changed their side following last weekend’s Champions Cup win against Castres.

The second-string Gloucester selection meant Munster were firm favourites at Páirc Uí Chaoimh and though they took their time to seal the deal, the Irish province wrapped up a bonus-point win.

This game continued a theme that has frustrated supporters in the Champions Cup, with some clubs opting to manage their squads as they balance the competition with domestic matters or simply focus on their league campaigns.

Gloucester remain in the hunt for the Champions Cup knock-outs with pool games against Edinburgh and Toulon to come in January, but their main focus now is a run of Premiership clashes with Leicester, Saracens, and Newcastle in the coming weeks.

“We want to fight on all fronts, everybody does, but the reality is that’s not realistic for us,” said Skivington after the defeat in Cork.

“So I think we’ll see where we are in the Prem, come back the last round in Europe and see what this pool looks like.

“And we may have to hedge our bets a little bit, but if we can have a decent three weeks now, I’d love to have a crack at the group.”

Skivington was keen to point out that Gloucester have also been contending with injury issues, meaning they have a greater need to manage their squad.

“I think everyone’s probably different,” he said.

“Our run of games with the Prem is a nine-block run of games. We’ve got quite a lot of injuries as well, to be frank about it, so we’ve got to manage our way through nine weeks straight of rugby.

“From our point of view, you’ve got to pick your battles a little bit. We still came here with that starting team, trying to rip in. Ideally, you come away with at least a point.

“But I think as you see across the whole tournament, barring maybe a handful of teams, most people have got to pick their battles and there’s probably a handful who have got deep squads and will be able to rotate through.

“But we all know who those guys are and I think the rest of us have got to pick your battles, hope you win.

“Win your home games maybe, nick a few points on the road and get through the group stage and probably face an enormous challenge off the back of that.

“But, you’ve also got to contend with the Premiership in our case which is tough.”

While Gloucester came away empty-handed in the end, Skivington took some pride in making life difficult for Munster.

The scoreline was still 12-3 with 15 minutes to go before things got away from them and Munster finished strongly.

Gloucester’s approach was kick-heavy and Skivington said that was down to the strong wind they had behind them in the first half, but also Munster’s strengths.

“I think Munster manage to slow the breakdown up more than anyone across any tournament in Europe,” he said.

“They’re the dominant team in that. The attacking team has the slowest breakdown against them and obviously we like a quick breakdown the way we play.

“So we knew it would be tough to play an expansive game; we knew we’d have to take our moments with that.

“Actually, again, until the last 15 minutes, the boys did a great job there, but then we just got blown away a little bit.”