GLOUCESTER JUST MISS THE TON!

"ERNIE C" opines: Phew what a week and what a start to 2002. The rugby itself seems almost incidental and given that "Glos 99 - GRAN Parma 0" was somewhat of an expected result, I feel there's still a lot more to say on the events immediately after the Newcastle match and the events of the following days. Gloucester and all things related to rugby in Gloucester have been in the media daily and all for the wrong reasons! What have you done Rob Andrew!!

Referring back to the comments I made on the shenanigans in the Glos v Newc. report and after all I've seen, read and heard during the last few days I'm more convinced than ever that Newcastle came down to start a fracas rather than play rugby. Of course it takes both teams to fight and as a Glos supporter I naturally side with the Glos players, but let's consider the following points: -

1. I have seen all first team matches at Kingsholm in the last 6 years and many of Gloucester's away games. Dec 29th2001 was the first time I'd seen anything approaching that level of violence.
2. Glos have been winning their games at Kingsholm very convincingly during the last few months with "5-0" league wins over Bristol, Quins, Leeds and Wasps - so it's hardly likely that they'd prefer the fight to playing rugby.
3. Most of Newcastle's wins this season have been by just a few points, usually points coming from the boot.
4. Vickery (despite his "Raging Bull" nickname) is known as a calm player, yet after the first scuffle he looked incensed and had to be held back by his team-mates - so who provoked that?

Given all this; it's not unreasonable to surmise that Newcastle came down with limited options for the game, so my speculation is that their only tactic was to incite the Glos players into giving away penalties such that Wilkinson could score penalty points. However things went sadly wrong and the resulting fighting was so bad that the ref red-carded a player from each side.

Immediately after the match we had Rob Andrew's outrageous outburst, where he accuses Azam and the Gloucester fans of racism. I really don't know why he chose to do this. Much of what he said is simply untrue, like the fact that he claims some fans (including season ticket holders) were thrown out of the ground.
In the BBC website audio report I listened to he also said "this is a bad day for Gloucester Rugby Club". Not once did he condemn the appalling violence - all of which involved many of the Newcastle players. Not once did he seem concerned that Azam had had his nose broken.

Racism is a very serious issue. However anything said during a rugby match especially in the heat of a mass brawl cannot be classed as racism. Azam strongly denies that he made a racist comment anyway.
As for the crowd - I have never heard any racist remarks at Kingsholm. Many have commented to this effect on The Kingsholm Chronicle Guest book and Mike Burton along with some Glos fans spoke up on Radio 5 Live on Monday.
There have also been comments from Matt Dawson: -
The former England captain defended the vociferous Gloucester crowd, whom Newcastle boss Rob Andrew also accused of racism. "They are a great rugby crowd - it's intimidating and it's a really tough place to go," he said. "I have only experienced good banter from the crowd. They may give me loads of stick but that is part of the buzz of playing. "I have never heard the crowd being racist or prejudice in any way." BBC Sport website
and Martin Johnson
They're certainly a vocal bunch on (sic) the 'Shed' at Gloucester, but I've never heard any malicious abuse from them when we've been playing there. Planet Rugby website.

Despite what happens on the field, rugby has always prided itself as a "move on & shake hands" type of sport.
When Taione and Azam were dismissed from the field it could be clearly seen on the video shown on Sky's "Rugby Club" that Azam offered to shake Taione's hand but Taione just brushed him aside.
There's much more that could be said, but I'll move on now to Saturday January 5th 2002.

Shortly before kick-off Tom Walkinshaw addressed the crowd:GRFC's investigations concluded that all allegations of racism were totally unfounded and Rob Andrew would be banned from Kingsholm until he apologises.
GRFC also think that Andrew is guilty of bringing the game into disrepute and are asking the RFU to bring him to task over this. Tom's words were met with rapturous applause and a cheer rang out with the news of Andrew being temporarily banned from the ground. This proves just how serious Andrew's allegations were and how upset and angry GRFC and all associated with the club have been. Let's hope Mr. Andrew is magnanimous enough to accept that his conduct was grossly out of order, he was in the wrong and that he apologises unequivocally.

Well I suppose it's about time I said something about the rugby. A predictable result maybe but I didn't expect it to be that one-sided. When Caerphilly played at Kingsholm Glos too notched up close to a 100 points but Caerphilly always looked as though they might score. With all due respect to Parma, I think they know they are out of their depth against teams from the English Premiership and given that they hadn't won a game in the Shield competition so far, they had nothing to gain from the match at Kingsholm so fielded an under strength side. They really weren't in the game at any point during the match, however there was some good defence work from them during the first half and right at the end when Glos were trying to break the 100-point mark, Parma hung on.

We all know that it's a philosophy of Philippe's to field players out of their usual position and that Andy Hazell has great speed; nevertheless it was still surprising to see Andy on the wing. He coped very well and scored a try. Darren O'Leary scored 5 tries which matches the 5 scored by Beim in the Heineken cup last year (against Roma - I think!).
There were tries also from Paul, Albanese, Forrester, Ewens, Sewabu (2), Fanolua, Stuart-Smith, & Paramore making 15 in total. Henry Paul is looking increasingly comfortable at fly half and he must have been practising his kicks at goal as he missed just 3 out of his 15 attempts.

Clive Stuart-Smith had a really good game at scrumhalf as did Jon Goodridge at fullback, in fact the whole team played well.
It was good to see Andy Deacon come on in the second half. He hasn't played many games this season but what we have seen of him shows he is still a very good player. It was also good to read in the programme that Deacs has been made captain for the Powergen Cup Tournament. I hope this inspires the rest of the lads and that Glos do well and claim the trophy.

In the other Shield match in Group 7 Caerphilly got off to a fine start, at one time leading by 23 points to 3. La Rochelle were very strong in the second half and eventually won the match 32-29. It's a shame Caerphilly didn't hang on. If they'd won then Glos would have been group winners irrespective of what happens in La Rochelle next week.

The rules of the Shield competition become complicated should two teams in a group top that group on the same number of points. I think it then depends on how those two teams have faired against each other rather than overall points difference. So if Glos lose in La Rochelle both teams finish on 10 points. If my memory is correct Glos beat La Rochelle at Kingsholm 34-15; so would need to at least lose only narrowly to guarantee a quarter final place. But hey no problem; Glos have a great squad and are playing so well at the moment that I'm very confident of a win and looking forward to a quarter final at Kingsholm at the end of the month.