Skivington admits 'I haven't got an answer' to worrying Gloucester problem

Mark McCall has hailed Wales international Tomos Williams as a “great, great player” ahead of his arrival at Saracens from Gloucester next summer.

Williams underlined the quality that Saracens can expect by shining for Gloucester in a 30-21 Gallagher PREM defeat against McCall’s team at Kingsholm.

The 30-year-old British and Irish Lion created two of Gloucester’s three tries and was a constant threat in a first appearance since Saracens announced their high-profile signing on Christmas Day.

“He is a great, great player,” Saracens rugby director McCall said. “He didn’t really have the best platform today, but everyone can see his quality every time he attacks.”

Saracens’ former England captain Jamie George echoed McCall, telling TNT Sports: “He is a brilliant signing and a brilliant guy.

“He is a world-class nine and is one guy who makes you stand back and think ‘this guy is special’.”

Saracens ended a run of three successive league defeats by seeing off Gloucester in bonus-point fashion.

Flanker Theo McFarland inspired a first PREM win since mid-October by scoring two of his team’s four tries, while hooker Theo Dan and scrum-half Ivan van Zyl also crossed, with fly-half Owen Farrell kicking two penalties and two conversions.

McCall said: “Overall, it was one of our better 80-minute performances. Today was good, but we have had inconsistent days.

“We could have beaten Bath and we could have beaten Exeter and been in a slightly different position to where we are.

“Today was important because we have lost a few in a row and it was important to come down here and get a result.”

Gloucester had their moments – notably through first-half touchdowns for locks Freddie Thomas and Arthur Clark, plus a late Will Knight try – with Ross Byrne converting all three scores, but they ultimately slipped to a seventh loss from eight PREM starts this term.

To compound Gloucester’s frustration, they lost wing Ben Loader – a pre-season signing from South African side the Stormers – after just 15 minutes of his comeback game following injury.

Gloucester rugby director George Skivington said: “I haven’t got an answer for why we keep losing a couple of players at the start of every game. It does create disruption.

“Ben has been out for months and he goes off in the first 15 minutes. It looked like his hamstring again. That is a guy we signed with high expectation and so far we’ve not managed to keep him on the field.”

On the game, Skivington added: “We are creating some pressure and some good line-breaks and then just not finishing them off. That is a sign of not quite connecting – we have not quite got the experience at the moment to get across the line.

“On the flip side, the boys stayed in the fight the whole game. They were desperate to try and get a losing bonus-point at the end and never threw the towel in.

“I think we created enough opportunities to at least come away with more than we did, but in the end we didn’t execute.”