Gloucester boss George Skivington does not expect to be drawn into any legal action for compensation from Newcastle following the signing of Falcons academy product Ben Redshaw, who will move to Kingsholm in the summer.
Steve Diamond, the Newcastle director of rugby, has revealed the North East club has taken legal advice to try and speed up compensation payments from Bath and Saracens for Guy Pepper, Phil Brantingham and Louie Johnson, but Skivington is confident Gloucester can side-step any potential demand from their Premiership rivals.
“I understand Steve’s frustrations about players leaving because he has had a good few young talents leave in the last two seasons,” said Skivington.
“I understand why you’d be trying (for compensation), and I am aware of the regulations, and there are dates and points when players become free, and there is no compensation. I don’t think that (compensation) is the case in this scenario, and I am very excited about Ben coming to Gloucester.
“Luckily, from that point of view, Ben is in a position to make a decision. There is a bit of a scramble around that because we weren’t the only club, and we had to sit and wait before we could jump in. Thankfully, he has decided to come to us, and we have brought in guys for next season who fit our attacking model and so we don’t have to start again. Ben Redshaw, Ben Loader, and Will Joseph are young, hungry and very good athletes.”
On the pitch, Skivington has warned his players their bid for a top-four finish will be totally undermined if the fundamental ball-winning errors exploited by Saracens are repeated against Exeter at Kingsholm on Sunday.
Gloucester’s attacking style of rugby has put them tantalising close to the top four – they are three points behind fourth placed Sale – but lineout problems and a failure to halt the Saracens driving maul, while losing 36-14 in North London, gave Skivington another sleepless night on Saturday as he tried to work out why these key areas let the team down.
With a home game against second-from-bottom Exeter, and then fixtures with Harlequins (away), Newcastle (away) and Northampton (home) to complete the regular season, Gloucester cannot afford a repeat of their problems.
Skivington explained: “I won’t dance around the fact we have lost a couple of fundamental pieces to the game plan, which, ironically, we were the best in the league at a couple of years ago. There is still a little bit of a balancing act, and we are not the perfect model. But it’s clear the way we are going to attack and defend.
“I don’t sleep very well after a game like Sarries, and you cannot finish top four if you don’t get those fundamentals right in the remaining games.”
