DESPITE suffering a 14try whitewash last weekend and finishing second bottom in the Premiership for a second straight year, Lewis Ludlow believes victory in Friday’s Challenge Cup final against the Sharks will make it a successful campaign for Gloucester.
Gloucester made 12 changes last weekend and were humiliated in a 90-0 loss at Northampton and captain Ludlow, 29, says there were honest conversations among the playing group before yesterday’s meeting with Newcastle.
He told The Rugby Paper: “There were a lot of new players in that group as others were given the weekend off to rest up and recuperate after what has been another extremely tough season. We looked at things objectively around what we could fix and some individual errors. We’ve got a chance to make it a double winning season and that’s what we’re going to go after.”
After finishing 10th last season, Gloucester have endured another disappointing Premiership campaign, picking up just four wins from 16 matches coming into this weekend.
Supporters were calling for director of rugby George Skivington’s head after last week’s thrashing with the club’s Premiership Cup triumph back in March papering over the cracks at Kingsholm.
The back row is thankful that the Challenge Cup has provided a useful distraction from their poor domestic form and believes a double winning campaign would result in a positive outcome from 2023/24.
“I’ve loved it, Europe’s always great,” said Ludlow. “You get games at Kingsholm on a Friday night which are special events to be a part of. The semi-final against Benetton was another one. We set our stall out for this cup after a poor run in the Prem, so it’s nice to have beaten a few teams on the way to reaching this final.
“No other Gloucester team has won two trophies
