Gloucester to bounce back – Sharples

Editor

Gloucester will bounce back from their opening season thrashing at Northampton according to winger Charlie Sharples.

Gloucester will bounce back from their opening season thrashing at Northampton according to winger Charlie Sharples.

The Cherry and Whites went down 53-6 at Franklin's Gardens as the reigning Premiership champions laid down a marker for the season ahead.

It was a disastrous evening for Gloucester, who were hoping to rebound after a poor campaign last season, but Sharples is optimistic the team will be able to take something from the loss.

“It's been a pretty subdued and disappointing weekend for everyone involved but we won't get too dragged down by it,” he told the Gloucester Citizen.

“It was a good marker of where we need to be against a very good Saints team and showed us how much work we have to do.

“You can't justify losing the first game of the season by 50 points which was incredibly disappointing after all the expectation and all the hard work.

“It was difficult to know what to expect going into the game because we had only been together for a few weeks, I don't think anyone expected us to lose like that and that was the most disappointing aspect – we weren't able to compete.

“It was a good lesson of the improvements we need to make if we want to be the top team in the league.

“Maybe that's the reality check we needed.

“Things are only going to get better, it's not going to be any worse because we have a good set of coaches, a great squad and the more we play and train together the more we will improve

“It's deflating but it's a long season, we have 21 Premiership games left, all the other games, so there's a lot of room for improvement.”