Gloucester white flag disrepects a great Cup

Gloucester are in the process of forgetting all about Danny Cipriani, that exquisitely gifted memory-maker of a No.10 who, when the gods were smiling upon him, persuaded even the most unreconstructed thud-and-blunderer in the darkest corner of the Kingsholm Shed that rugby could be a game of artistry and wonderment.

- CHRIS HEWETT

Not that the Cherry and Whites should find it too difficult, forgetfulness being second nature to them. Only a week ago, the fact that they were playing an important game in the Champions Cup entirely slipped their minds.

The moment George Skivington, the head coach, named his side for a first round trip to Lyon that would have been challenging under any circumstances – Les Loups are currently mixing it with the likes of Toulouse and Racing 92 at the business end of the French domestic table – one bookmaker offered the eyewatering odds of 1/1000. Needless to say, it wasn’t Gloucester who were favourites.

As ever in a sport where the treatment room stays open 24/7 and the medics never rest, Skivington was wrestling with an injury list longer than a Proustian paragraph. Yet he could, had he so chosen, have fielded a whole bunch of current international contenders, from Jonny May, Louis Rees-Zammit, Ollie Thorley and Chris Harris out back to Jack Singleton and Matias Alemanno up front, reinforced by some hardened senior figures of the uncapped variety, including Mark Atkinson, Ed Slater and Ruan Ackermann.

He declined to choose those individuals. Instead, he selected what spin-doctoring glove puppets in communications departments the world over invariably describe as “an exciting blend of youth and experience” and the rest of us call “a collection of nohopers”.