Following their impressive victory at The Stoop on Sunday Gloucester’s defence coach Jonny Bell at why Heinz and Cipriani add balance to the attack and how well they work together.
Tom Marshall not taking win for granted
Despite a convincing win over Quins, try scorer Tom Marshall insists Gloucester aren’t taking their league standing for granted. ”We’ve got a week off next weekend so it’s good to go into that week with a win.
”[Beating the top three teams] is exactly what we needed to do but it’s such a tough competition we can’t afford to drop off in any games. We take a lot of confidence from this result as it’s a massive result in our season, but we have to make sure going forward we become more consistent.
” The belief and the confidence have always been there. We’ll take a lot from that performance, it’s not easy to come away from home and claim five points against a side in the top four. We’ll get a lot of belief from that, but nothing’s sealed yet and we have to take each week as they come.”
Week off allows for fierce training
With a week off before Wasps at Kingsholm, Willi Heinz highlighted just how good it can be to have no game and how they must approach every game individually saying, ” It’s very much one game at a time for us. It’s so tight between third and tenth, every week you’re seeing someone bump up or down the table. We’re happy we could come here today and impose our game.
”It’s about nailing the approaches. Every time you go to a game, doing everything you can individually and collectively as a team to impose the game we want to put on the opposition. We’ve seen this throughout the season. When we pitch up with the right mindset, accuracy and physicality we can get the results. That’s our challenge and one we drive for.
”It’s pleasing and it’s something we spoke about after that run of five losses. It was a case of getting back to basics and identifying the key areas of our game that we know if we get right that leads us to performing well and if we perform well, we’ll get the results.
”Whilst it was frustrating to lose those games in other ways it was a gift as it gave us a chance to reflect hard in a couple of weeks hard where we could go and work hard on our game. Whilst we didn’t get the result last week, we saw the fruits of our labour with the opportunities we created.
” Next week will be very important again. When you don’t have the pressure of a game at the end of the week you can really rip into training. Identify key areas we’d have seen from this game and looking at Wasps and what they’ll bring and polishing up on most things to ensure we’re prepared.”
Bell up for one final push
With only six games remaining in this season’s Gallagher Premiership, Gloucester’s defence coach Jonny Bell gave his thoughts on their league standing and how much that could alter if they don’t pitch up in the remaining fixtures.
”It’s an important win for us, but this league is pretty crazy and if you don’t get it right on the day, you’ll lose so it’s important for us, with the league so compacted behind Exeter and Sarries that we didn’t let that gap increase.
”We haven’t gained a position, but we’ve won three of the last four games which is important in what was a tough round of fixtures for us.
”As this league has proved this weekend, if you don’t pitch up with the right frame of mind you’ll lose. We just need to reset, we’ve got a weekend off, so we’ll enjoy this moment and then we’ve got Wasps at Kingsholm. They’ll have their English boys back, so we’ve just got to rest up, get our heads in the right place and push for this large charge with one final push.”
Heinz and Cipriani add balance to the attack
Following another strong performance from the half-back pairing Bell talked about their influence on the game and just how much Danny Cipriani works brilliantly – In a perfectly blended concoction with Heinz.
”It’s balance. Willi [Heinz], Callum [Braley] and Owen [Williams] all give us that balance. Those guys would admit Danny [Cipriani] can pull the trigger on a pass and it’s those moments that are crucial.
”The game is based around winning collisions and being on the front foot so if it’s Josh Hohneck clearing someone out to create that two second ruck speed, that creates the opportunity for Danny to play on the front foot and for Willi to get the ball away quickly.
”The balance is nice there because Willi has a strategic gameplan and his kicking game is strong too. There’s ups and downs in this game and everyone contributes to the performance on the day but having someone like Danny has that ability to just pick the right pass at the right time.”
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