Skivington's Gloucester promise: 'That's not the route we go down'

Gloucester boss George Skivington has admitted he won’t be following local rivals Bath and recruiting a raft of new players from crisis-hit Worcester. Ahead of this Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership derby at The Rec, Johann van Grann bolstered his 13th and bottom-placed squad by bringing in Ted Hill, Ollie Lawrence, Fergus Lee-Warner and Valeriy Morozov from the financially ruined Warriors.

With Worcester facing a High Court winding-up petition on Wednesday, the expectation is that the club will be liquidated and it will result in the termination of all player contracts, leaving them free agents for other clubs to peruse over.

Gloucester boss Skivington, though, has given support to his existing squad, explaining at his media briefing on Tuesday that his preference would be back the players he already has at Kingsholm rather than potentially hinder their development by recruiting from the Worcester firesale.

“I really like this group we have got and if I keep them all in the building I will,” he said following a start to the season where his team have played just two Premiership matches so far due to a bye week and the cancellation of last weekend’s game with Worcester.

“We all get the chance, we all get to look at the players who are out there and that sort of thing and all the clubs will have the same agents ringing them saying listen, so and so is on offer. But from my point of view I like the squad we have got, I like backing young players like you see with Harry Taylor and Cam Jordan and these lads.

“I think from my point of view, I’m not saying nothing would ever happen if there was a good fit but I am also very keen to develop the young players and invest in the long term. If a player was going to block someone’s development, that is not the route we go down.”

That said, Skivington admitted that the current Gloucester academy set-up isn’t yet as strong as he would like. “We have got Carl Hogg in to run the academy now which is a really positive step and the goal of the club is to have a really good academy feeding into the first team more than going hunting for players, but it takes time to work out where your best identification is.

“Ultimately you want an academy where you are two, three players deep in every position, pushing hard to come through, and if one does come through in each position every couple of years you are in a good spot. We’re not quite there with that and our academy probably had a few poor results last season that we are addressing.

“There is some good stuff going on in the background but it is more about making sure we get the system right and then start identifying positions that maybe haven’t just come forward and we have to go and find them.”

The contracting market in England has changed in recent times with renewals and new signings for the following season now being announced much earlier than before. An example was Gloucester last week announcing that Freddie Clarke has extended beyond this season and Skivington reckoned that this earlier announcement of deals will likely become a trend across the Premiership.

“Going forward people can speak to other players earlier than they used to and things like that and the (salary) cap has really squeezed teams now and there are not monster salaries for players anymore and all that sort of stuff,” he explained.

“People have to make genuine rugby decisions which if you are happy in a good rugby environment, you feel like you are going to get better and better and the money is fair, I don’t think you would necessarily want to leave. A lot of lads feel like that about where they are and yes, it makes sense in a sort of rugby landscape that is a bit unstable and all the rest of it. You get stability when you can and make strong decisions.”