George Skivington praises ‘mental toughness’ of players as Gloucester end nine-year trophy drought

Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington praised the “mental toughness” of his players as The Cherry and Whites beat Leicester Tigers to win the Premiership Rugby Cup and end a nine-year wait for a trophy in front of their home fans.

Not since the Challenge Cup in 2015 have Gloucester lifted silverware, while their struggles in the Gallagher Premiership this season have been well documented.

They currently sit second from bottom with three wins from 12 and endured a nine-game losing streak before arresting that slide against Sale Sharks to go into the Six Nations break with some positivity.

With a last-16 Investec Challenge Cup tie to look forward to and a new addition to the trophy cabinet, the transformation has been remarkable.

“I'm proud of them because they had to be brave,” Skivington told TNT Sports. “Everybody knew how important to win this trophy was for the whole club.

“It's been a bit of a drought of trophies and the boys have worked so hard, like tirelessly, and we got a really bad run earlier in the year.

“You've got to roll your sleeves up and you've got to show some serious mental toughness to come through that. And that's just rewards for the boys and for the supporters as well who are unbelievable.”

It was a game of two halves. Leicester led 6-3 after a drab opening period before the contest came to life.

Two yellow cards either side of half-time – for Finn Theobald-Thomas and Mike Brown – briefly reduced Leicester to 13 men and the hosts pounced, a quick tap and go releasing Seb Atkinson to dive over for the first try of the game.

The second quickly followed when Cam Jordan took the ball from the bottom of the ruck and powered through the Leicester defence, with George Barton adding the extras to make it 17-6.

A lack of discipline continued to cost Leicester and another two Barton penalties took The Cherry and Whites more than two converted tries clear with less than a quarter of the game remaining.

A converted Hanro Liebenberg try in the 75th minute gave The Tigers a glimmer of hope but it proved nothing more than a consolation as Gloucester saw out a hard-fought and well-deserved 23-13 victory.

TNT Sports pundit and former England international Billy Twelvetrees described it as “massive” for the club and said this could provide a springboard for more success in the future.

“Rugby is huge on momentum, confidence, everything we talk about mentally in the game,” Twelvetrees, who earlier praised Gloucester's work in the transfer market, said. “Winning breeds confidence within a group of players, whatever team you're in, so this will be massive.

“That losing streak that happened will feel like a long time ago now for this club. Now this winning streak they're on they’ll hopefully get it into the Premiership as well and also into Europe.

“They've got a home knockout game in Europe and they’ll look to move on. There’s a young group of players here and they’re enjoying themselves. That’s what it’s all about.”

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