More Gloucester 'wizardry' to come
Director of David Humphreys wants Gloucester to conjure up some backline wizardry every week as his side soared past London Welsh (46-10) in a ruthless second-half Premiership performance.
"In the second half we kept the ball a little bit better and had a couple of bits of magic."
The Exiles had squandered ball in promising positions before the break but a Ben Pienaar try helped peg the Cherry & Whites back to within two after Henry Purdy and Charlie Sharples scores.
However, a Taione Vea sin bin sparked an assault by the visitors as replacement Mark Atkinson notched a double before Jonny May grabbed his own within the space of five minutes.
And Humphreys says Gloucester, who overhauled both their coaching and playing staff over the summer, must now feed their backs in the Premiership on a regular basis.
"You look back over the last two or three years, some of the tries of the season have been scored by Jonny May, Sharples and James Simpson-Daniel," said Humphreys.
"We know that's there and if we want to be successful as a team, we've got to be creating three or four overlaps and making sure Jonny Mays are scoring very easy tries.
"We haven't got to that stage yet and that's part of the challenge as we continue to develop.
"A lot of the elements we know we've got to build our game around weren't there [in the first half].
"I think in the second half we kept the ball a little bit better and had a couple of bits of magic to score some tries. That gave us a bit of breathing space, but London Welsh made it very difficult for us."
Despite another lopsided scoreline the Exiles went blow-for-blow with Gloucester for much of the match until their late implosion.
However, head coach Justin Burnell was in no mood for excuses – admitting both players and coaches need to learn from their mistakes.
"It will be interesting reviewing the game," he said. "We are all professional enough not to state the obvious but we have got to review this game and have a good look at it.
"Like anything else when you are trying your damndest and you are all doing the same I can understand when mistakes happen, but all we are looking for is just the right decisions to be made.
"When we want the right decisions to be made it's not always about the players. We have all just got to get to the same opinion about what's going on basically."
The scorers:
For London Welsh:
Try: Pienaar
Con: Barkley
Pen: Barkley
For Gloucester:
Tries: Purdy, Sharples, Atkinson 2, May, Penalty try
Cons: Hook, Laidlaw 4
Pens: Twelvetrees, Laidlaw
Yellow cards: Taione Vea (London Welsh, 63), Dean Schofield (London Welsh, 78)
Teams:
London Welsh: 15 Seb Jewell, 14 Rhys Crane, 13 Nic Reynolds, 12 Tom May (captain), 11 Nick Scott, 10 Olly Barkley, 9 Piri Weepu, 8 Ollie Stedman, 7 Richard Thorpe, 6 Lachlan McCaffrey, 5 James Down, 4 Dean Schofield, 3 Taione Vea, 2 Koree Britton, 1 Ricky Reeves.
Replacements: 16 Nathan Morris, 17 Shane Cahill, 18 Jack Gilding, 19 Matt Corker, 20 Ben Pienaar, 21 Rob Lewis, 22 Tristan Roberts, 23 James Lewis.
Gloucester: 15 Rob Cook, 14 Charlie Sharples, 13 Henry Purdy, 12 Billy Twelvetrees (captain), 11 Jonny May, 10 James Hook, 9 Dan Robson, 8 Ben Morgan, 7 Matt Kvesic, 6 Sione Kalamafoni, 5 Tom Palmer; 4 Elliott Stooke, 3 John Afoa, 2 Richard Hibbard, 1 Dan Murphy.
Replacements: 16 Aleki Lutui, 17 Yann Thomas, 18 Sila Puafisi, 19 James Hudson, 20 Ross Moriarty, 21 Greig Laidlaw, 22 Mark Atkinson, 23 Tom Isaacs.
Referee: Luke Pearce (30th Premiership game)
Assistant referees: Paul Dix and Ross Campbell
TMO: Sean Davey
