Newcastle Falcons vs Gloucester Rugby team news: Skivington rests first teamers
Gloucester’s ‘young guns’ have been running against international standard opposition at full bore in training this week to prepare themselves for Friday night’s trip to Kingston Park to take on Newcastle Falcons in the quarter-finals of the Premiership Rugby Cup.
The defending champions have consistently picked largely developmental teams throughout the competition this season, barring their home tie against Exeter Chiefs in the Autumn, and they have continued in that vein this weekend despite it now being knock out rugby.
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Waldouck said: “We are approaching the quarter-finals as we have the whole competition, we're giving an opportunity to young guys who we want to keep as the first team players in the future.
“We saw two weekends ago in Exeter that it's a fantastic opportunity and the players are taking advantage of those opportunities.”
The Cherry and Whites booked their place in the quarter-finals after a young side defied the odds to beat a full-strength Exeter outfit 22-12 on their own patch in the final pool stage game.
Waldouck said: “It was 66-1 against us I heard, so our win was massively against the odds. When you looked at the two team sheets on paper they were incomparable, but you know, rugby's a game built on attitude and we showed unbelievable attitude. We were relentless, we were aggressive, we were committed to each other and when you do that you can do special things in a rugby game.”
Falcons are close to full strength this weekend with the northern club sitting adrift of the play-off race at the bottom of the Gallagher Premiership. Waldouck said: “I expect to come up against a fully loaded Newcastle Falcons team that's highly motivated to get through to the semi-final.”
In contrast, Gloucester have given most of their stars another weekend of rest with the club still fighting in three competitions and the Gallagher Premiership the priority, but that has not stopped the same players from giving everything to training to prepare Saturday’s side.
Waldouck, having come straight off the training pitch to the midweek press conference, said: “The quality of the session today was unbelievable. We've got a team defending today against Santi Carreras, Chris Harris, Seb Atkinson, Max Llewellyn, Tomos Williams. You're not going to defend against a backline like that very often. Josh Hathaway on the wing as well. So it was a good test for the lads but they stood up to it. It's brilliant training against that sort of opposition; it is only developing the young players which is exactly what we're trying to do with this Premiership Rugby Cup squad.”
Team news
Newcastle Falcons: 15 Elliott Obatoyinbo, 14 Oli Spencer, 13 Sammy Arnold, 12 Max Clark, 11 Alex Hearle, 10 Brett Connon, 9 Sam Stuart; 1 Adam Brocklebank, 2 Jamie Blamire, 3 Murray McCallum, 4 Sebastian de Chaves, 5 Kiran McDonald, 6 Philip van der Walt, 7 Freddie Lockwood, 8 Callum Chick (captain).
Replacements: 16 Ollie Fletcher, 17 Micky Rewcastle, 18 Richard Palframan, 19 John Hawkins, 20 Cameron Neild, 21 Joe Davis, 22 Kieran Wilkinson, 23 Nathan Greenwood.
Gloucester Rugby: 15 Ioan Jones, 14 Louis Hillman-Cooper, 13 Will Butler (C), 12 Morgan Adderly-Jones, 11 Jack Cotgreave, 10 Charlie Atkinson, 9 Mike Austin**; 1 Archie McArthur, 2 Morgan Nelson, 3 Alfie Petch, 4 Freddie Stevens**, 5 Josh Gray**, 6 Jacob Wells**, 7 Caio James, 8 Olly Allport.
Replacements: 16 George Knowles, 17 Harrison Bellamy, 18 Jono Benz-Salomon, 19 Joe Gaffan**, 20 Jayden Wrottesley*, 21 Charlie Chapman, 22 Max Knight, 23 Matty Ward,
*Called up from U18s. **On loan.
Referee: Luke Pearce
Assistant Referees: Joe James and Neil Chivers
