'Obviously, everyone's going to be upset with losing Tommy': George Skivington

Tomos Williams will retain the Gloucester captaincy despite his decision to leave the club at the end of the season.

The Wales scrum-half’s imminent departure has led to questions over whether he should continue to lead the Cherry and Whites.

But Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington insists he is still the man to captain the side.

“He’s here for the rest of the season, so he remains captain for the rest of the season,” said Skivington.

“I know with me and him having good chats he’ll give everything to the club.

“I knew when I made Tommy captain for this year that his contract was up, he’d been on a British Lions tour and I knew the reality of huge financial offers were going to come in, not just from this country, but all over. So I always knew Tommy being captain was never likely to be a long-term captaincy. There was always the risk that he would leave.

“I knew this could be a one-year captaincy so it’s not by any means an issue.

“I’ll deal with that at the back end of the year but I’m very confident we’ll have a very good captain in place for next season.

“In the here and now, I know Tommy will continue to do a good job for us.”

Williams was rested for last weekend’s Champions Cup defeat at Munster but is expected to return for Friday’s visit to Leicester.

Williams’s replacement will be Dan Robson who is coming back to the club where he started his senior career from Pau.

It is not a like-for-like swap – Robson will be 34 by next season – but Skivington hopes Gloucester will be getting a mentor as well as a player.

“I think Dan Robson will prove to be a really strong signing for us. With him and Caolan Englefield, there’s a nice balance. I think they’ll push each other really hard,” said Skivington.

While the loss of Williams is a huge one, the Gloucester DOR hopes the signings of his Wales teammates Jac Morgan and Dewi Lake will placate unhappy fans.

“It’s a tough one, isn’t it because Tommy was so good last season for us – he was the best player in the league but sometimes someone leaving opens the door to reposition a few bits,” he said.

“It’s not like the lads who are in those positions haven’t been doing a good enough job, but I think there’s a weight in numbers thing maybe that we have missed a little bit of and I think we’ll hopefully start to see that back in our game.

“I feel Jac and Dewi in the pack will bring us to another level and really drive on some quality players that we’ve grown over the last four or five years.

“Obviously, everyone’s going to be upset with losing Tommy, I get that, but I think you’d like to think everybody would be pretty excited about those two coming in and Dan Robson as well.”