GLOUCESTER
Community
“Gloucester Rugby community schemes are wide and
diverse and target schoolchildren as well as vulnerable
people of all ages through rugby development, health
and wellbeing, educational and social inclusion
initiatives.
At grass roots level the focus is on inclusion, the
desired outcome of projects is to remove barriers
to participation, provide the opportunity to play and
progress in rugby and where possible to work and
provide opportunities for young people to move from
recreational participation into club and performance
programmes.
The community team will also work with external
organisations to offer training and support for teachers,
coaches and sports leaders, enhancing links between
schools clubs and the wider community.”
The Summer
“The boys are working hard, the coaches are now all in
place and getting to know the players and vice versa.
In an ideal world you wouldn’t have 26 players coming
in, a whole new coaching team and your Head coach
coming in so late in the day as it doesn’t give much
continuity but it is what it is. I’m pleased with where
we have ended up from a personnel perspective but
it’s important that we don’t put too much pressure on
ourselves for everything to click in to place immediately
as it will take time and we are building for the long
term.”
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ISSUE 01
Challenges
“I would say our number 1 challenge would be the
salary cap and where that ends up. All clubs in the PRL
are run differently and I accept that. My concern is that
the clubs that maybe don’t have the same model as
ourselves and are owned by particularly rich individuals
or groups will simply push forward a model that inflates
the salary cap too quickly and renders a number of
English clubs unable to compete.
A real strength of the Aviva Premiership is the ability
of most teams to be able to take points off others on
any given day. To lose that would, in my opinion be
a massive shame and would effectively devalue our
domestic product. I fully understand that 2 or 3 clubs
with deep pockets will argue that bringing the best
players in the world to our shores can only strengthen
the game but having a league where only 2 or 3 clubs
can win anything would impact 75% of the clubs
negatively so balance is key.
We also have challenges with ensuring the legacy of
the World cup sees more kids playing and watching
Rugby, closure on the RFU agreement, TV deals and a
number of other projects.”
Ambitions
“We want to win things. There is no point suggesting
anything else. That doesn’t mean for 1 minute that
we expect to just start winning things and it will
take planning, investment, success in the areas of
recruitment and academy and no doubt a big slice
of luck along the way. We have not won a premium
competition for a number of years and have no divine
right to do so but we would clearly love to be able to
change that in the next 5 years.”