'It's pretty ruthless': George Skivington lifts lid on Gloucester contract talks

Gloucester boss George Skivington admits the Cherry and Whites have begun reviewing the contracts of players who will become free agents at the end of next season.

Skivington says that looking at contracts of players who only have a little over a year to run on their current deals is a high priority for Gloucester’s new rugby general manager, Rob Burgess.

Burgess will shift his attention to players at the club after initially being tasked with finding his new club a much-needed tighthead prop for next season.

“Me and Rob, Boydie (Chris Boyd) sat down before he left and looked at who’s coming up, who’s really important, and you start obviously trying to think about talking to those lads. So that’s very high on Robert Burgess’s list of things to do for sure.

“I saw Ben Bamber has done a four-year deal at Sale this week. But I never saw his name come up on the market, so I’m presuming he’s a good example of where Sale jumped ahead and got stuff done.

“I think it’s become more and more common practice in the last few years, you know, especially around homegrown players and things like that, where, you know, they’ve got extra value, if you like, because they’ve come through the system,” Skivington told RugbyPass.

Gloucester, looking to get contracts sorted early, is in sharp contrast to Skivington’s early playing days with Wasps and Leicester Tigers, when contract talks and recruitment were often left until the last minute.

“I remember [my] contracts going right to the end, and maybe that’s because I wasn’t that good, but I remember you weren’t a million miles away from being out of contract when you were talking about renewing.

“I did a good few one-year deals in those early years. You were constantly trying to prove yourself all the time, but I think back to then, squads were a little bit bigger, and clubs were a little bit less resourced.

“So I think there was a lot more space in a squad for, I don’t want to use the word journeyman, it’s the wrong term I’m looking for, but, you know, it’s a pretty ruthless market.

“If you do get to the back end of your contract, it’s pretty ruthless. If you’re not sorted earlier, you don’t really want to be going onto the free market anymore because there’s not unlimited money out there.

“There are some good players out there whose contracts are running out, and they have some decisions to make around continuing on considerably less money or moving on from rugby.

“A decade ago, for instance, there wouldn’t be too many lads who have played a lot of PREM games who wouldn’t get a contract somewhere,” he added.

Gloucester Rugby vs Sale Sharks: 15 George Barton; 14 Will Joseph; 13 Max Llewellyn; 12 Seb Atkinson (VC); 11 Ben Loader; 10 Charlie Atkinson; 9 Tomos Williams (C); 1 Val Rapava Ruskin; 2 Seb Blake; 3 Afo Fasogbon; 4 Arthur Clark (VC); 5 Matías Alemanno; 6 Freddie Thomas; 7 Jame Venter; 8 Will Trenholm

Replacements: 16 Jack Innard; 17 Dian Bleuler; 18 Ciaran Knight; 19 Danny Eite; 20 Deian Gwynne; 21 Jack Clement; 22 Caolan Englefield; 23 Josiah Edwards-Giraud.