Saracens v Gloucester preview
Three finals down, three to go.
With Bath failing to do us any sort of favours on the weekend, we really are left with no room for slip ups in our next two home games. Gloucester at home, on the face of it, looks simple enough compared to our last two outings but they’ve hit on a mini resurgence following Skivington’s role being changed to focus on coaching and the return of some key injured players. A big part of that resurgence is one Tomos Williams, however I believe he is out with a shoulder injury for a few weeks which should be in our favour because he really has made them tick. Charlie Atkinson needs to be shackled after beating about 20 defenders last week but hopefully not in the way Faz did back in the Covid days. The other Atkinson is another stiff test for Hartley after a good performance v BJVR. Between those 3 and Ojomoh England are starting to get good options at 12. Glos centre partnership is very strong in general with Llewelyn too, it will key part of the match up. Loader has also been on fire, very physical seemingly breaking tackles for fun and will take some marshalling by Segun. I seem to remember in his Irish days we targeted him successfully under the high ball which may be of interest to a certain someone. A big threat comes at scrum time with Fasogbon and VRR going great guns at the moment. Street failed a HIA which could mean a mandatory 2 week lay off, while Riccioni seems to be injured again. That leaves a big job for Clarey and one of Beaton and Tietie who we’ve barely seen this season.
For us, well, if it ain’t broke…
I’d probably bring on Carré to start, he’s a better scrummager than Mawi and reminds me of Earl in that you think he’ll be an amazing bench option because of the running threat but in reality they seem to be better growing into a game. McFarland’s form has been so good there’s always an argument to bring him back but Isiekwe was great last week so no arguments if we stay as is.
On paper we should bring back the 5 points but Glos will as always want to spoil the party and pressure can do funny things to a team. I hope that we can continue the attacking verve from last week’s first half to build a lead and maybe leave it a bit later to shut up shop, purely for the sake of my blood pressure!