George Skivington talks up 'relative unknown's England chances

George Skivington believes England coach Steve Borthwick will have liked what he saw of centre Seb Atkinson following his hat-trick in Gloucester’s crushing 53-28 win against Bristol.

Skivington also praised former England man Christian Wade, who scored three tries and now has more hat-tricks than any other Premiership player.

Wade, 33, leapt above Chris Ashton with his seventh hat-trick as Gloucester ran in nine tries and moved third in the table, just behind Bears.

Boss Skivington said: “Seb is still a relative unknown in terms of what he can do on the field and I hope Steve can find a place for him (in the England squad). It might have been a very good time for Seb to get that hat-trick with Steve in the crowd.

“There are a lot of good twelves around in the Premiership but I feel Seb has got something more than most. He is an outstanding player and we saw what he can do today.”

Fixture

Gallagher Premiership

Gloucester

53 - 28

Full-time

Bristol

All Stats and Data

On Wade, who now has 89 tries – 12 behind the Premiership’s all-time leading try scorer Ashton – he said: “Christian has been excellent since coming to Kingsholm. He’s got so much pace and quality, and he’s very clinical.”

Wade, who spent time in the NFL before returning to rugby union, said: “There was a lot of energy out there and it was fun. I’m really enjoying my time at Gloucester.

“Getting the hat-trick was a bonus because it’s all about the team getting that big win and bonus point to keep us in the hunt.”

Centre Atkinson said: “It wasn’t a bad day out! It was all a bit of a blur as I don’t score too many tries and that was my first hat-trick. We came out firing. We wanted our attack to take on theirs and it worked well.”

Bristol boss Pat Lam bemoaned “a bad day” at the office.

He said: “We knew what to expect but we didn’t do what we had trained to do. We got things wrong and didn’t deal with it. But everyone has a bad day.

“We have to dust ourselves off and have five games to go to get ourselves in the play-offs.”