'He still has a long way to go': Gloucester rookie singled out

Gloucester head coach George Skivington hailed the talents of his full-back Ben Redshaw as the former Falcon scored a hat-trick of tries to steer his side to a Champions Cup place with a 54-21 victory over Newcastle Red Bulls at Kingsholm.

The bonus-point win was enough for Gloucester to finish eighth in the league table and pip Harlequins for the final spot in Europe.

Gloucester began slowly to trail 14-7 at the end of the first quarter but a four-try blitz in 11 minutes turned the games on its head as Newcastle tamely wilted during that spell.

Arthur Clark, Caolan Englefield, Max Llewellyn, James Venter and Seb Blake were also on the try-scoring sheet, with Charlie Atkinson converting seven.

George McGuigan, Tom Christie and Simon Benitez Cruz scored Newcastle’s tries. Brett Connon converted two and Ben Healy one.

Gallagher Premiership

P

W

L

D

PF

PA

PD

BP T

BP-7

BP

Total

1

Northampton

18

14

3

1

74

2

Bath

18

13

5

0

69

3

Exeter Chiefs

18

11

6

1

65

4

Leicester

18

12

6

0

63

5

Saracens

18

10

8

0

57

6

Bristol

18

11

7

0

54

7

Sale

18

5

13

0

36

8

Gloucester

18

5

13

0

32

9

Harlequins

18

6

12

0

31

10

Newcastle

18

2

16

0

12

Skivington said: “Ben was excellent today and has grown nicely in the last three games after missing most of the season with an injury.

“He still has a long way to go but he’s an excellent talent which hopefully will continue to develop.”

Skivington accepted this his side were not at their best but was happy at how the season had finished.

He said: “We set out to win the last three games at Kingsholm and we’ve achieved this.

“We had to win today as it’s important we have the opportunity to play against the best teams but in reality you have to assess the Champions Cup when it arrives next season.

“We scored first today but the opening period was still edgy as there was a lot of emotion around the place in the week with players leaving.

“Newcastle were dogged, especially in the set-piece, but had our line-out functioned better, we may have put the game to bed earlier but ultimately we got the job done and that’s what mattered.”

It was Stephen Jones’ last match in charge of Newcastle and he paid tribute to his players despite them winning only two of their 18 league fixtures this season.

He said: “Twenty-six players will be moving on from the club but throughout they have been a tight group who have been honest with each other.

“Today we scored some good tries and missed a couple of decent opportunities but we switched off badly in that 11-minute period and that really cost us.

“We showed some really good fight in the second half and some of the players had to really dig deep to go the whole 80 as they were running on empty.

“Looking ahead we have to ensure that we don’t lose players who come through our academy like Ben Redshaw as we’ve done in the past.

“The fans should be excited about next season as we have a whole new group coming in. It will take a bit of time to bring them together but hopefully we should soon see the benefits.”