Q&A with Gloucester DoR David Humphreys

David Humphreys is entering a defining third season as director of rugby at Gloucester. The Ulsterman tells NEALE HARVEY why it’s time for the Cherry & Whites to fulfil their rich potential.
Can you summarise your first two seasons in charge of Gloucester?
They have passed in a bit of a blur! In the first year, because things happened so quickly with all the changes made at the club with the new management team coming in, it really took us that first full season to get to know everybody and understand all the strengths and weaknesses in the team. But we rounded it off by winning the European Challenge Cup, which was a real positive at the end of a frustrating season league-wise.
We thought that victory might be the springboard for success and give the players the belief to compete higher than we have been for the last few years, but then last season we just didn’t have the consistency that’s required.
A lot of judgement last season was formed by a five-game losing run in March and April against Worcester, London Irish, Bath, Leicester and Dragons. Prior to that we were tracking quite nicely. We’d come off the back of beating Wasps and believed we had a chance of cracking that top six and getting back into the Champions Cup, but ultimately two or three really poor performances cost us our season and left us with a very disappointed group of players and
management. So, on the back of all that this is a very big season for us all.
You lost key backs like Jonny May, below, Henry Trinder, Charlie Sharples, Billy Burns and Tom Marshall to injury, do you accept those were extenuating circumstances?
We’re not here to make excuses, we’ll be judged by what we do on the field. There’s no doubt we were unlucky with the injuries we suffered, quite often to our outside backs, and when you think of the potential that lies in the May, Sharples and Marshall back three combination, I don’t think we saw that on the field more than once all season. But look, there are many reasons why we didn’t get to where we wanted and in six of the 11 league games we lost, we were leading in the 70th minute. You don’t expect to win all your matches but neither do you expect to lose so many late on, so you look at the reasons behind that and we believe we’ve come up with some good answers and solutions. But only time will tell if we’ve got that right.
Why did you dispense with the services of backs coach Nick Walshe?
Two years ago, we tried to build a management group from scratch in a very short period of time. We had to bring together a group of people who’d never worked together before and hadn’t necessarily got a similar outlook on rugby. Over the couple of years we gained a clear idea of what worked and what didn’t work and while Nick’s a very good coach who’s proved that in the past and will be successful in future somewhere else, at this time we felt it was in the best interests of the playing group to make a change.
Only Newcastle scored fewer than Gloucester’s 36 league tries last season, you couldn’t have been happy with that?
If you cast your mind back to that first season, we scored a lot of tries but our problem then was that we conceded too many tries and penalties from the drive and set-piece. Therefore, our focus going into last season was that to compete in this unbelievably physical and attritional league we had to address the defence and become a much harder team to play against. We set a goal of re-establishing Gloucester as one of the dominant packs – we had to sort out the driving maul and our set-piece – and to a large degree we did that. Trevor Woodman and Laurie Fisher turned that around, but then we just couldn’t score tries. We created lots of opportunities for tries, no question, but we couldn’t finish things off and that was disappointing. The bottom line is it wasn’t good enough and this year, with Tim Taylor now working with our backs, that’s an element of our game that I believe will be a lot better.
How satisfied are you with your recruitment?
We want to be a stronger squad than last year and I believe that will be the case. Matt Scott, below, coming into the centres will give us something different to what we had before, while Andrew Symons is a big, physical centre who was unfortunate with injury at Worcester but showed real glimpses of what his capabilities are. We’ve got ourselves a very competitive midfield with Billy Twelvetrees and Mark Atkinson there and we need that depth across a range of positions. Up front, bringing in Josh Hohneck and Motu Matu’u will bring a real physical edge. They’re guys with a lot of Super Rugby experience who understand what’s required to be successful in rugby. They know what success feels like and the sacrifices you’ve got to make to achieve it. We’ve also brought Tom Denton in from Leinster who’s been part of a very successful province for a few years, so we’d like to feel we’ve added quality with all those guys.
How has the new salary cap and attendant wage inflation impacted on recruitment?
There’s no doubt recruitment is getting harder each year. More and more clubs are fishing in a pool of players that isn’t getting any bigger, which is why we’ve invested heavily in our academy. We’ve pretty much got a whole new academy staff now and we believe that will be the foundation of long-term success for this club. Recruitment will continue becoming harder and players want to play at clubs that will be successful, so we’ve got to show that as a club we are moving forward. With the group of players we have, I believe that if we continue to work hard and continue to make improvements, with a couple more players we can be very competitive.
You’re still in the marketplace then?
Yes. People used to talk about recruitment windows but the reality now is that you’re always looking at what opportunities become available. We would like to strengthen our squad further, but at the same time we will only bring in someone who we think will add real value on and off the pitch. We’ve got plenty of room in the salary cap to be able to do that but it comes back to the right players being available at the right time and it’s an ongoing process.
What sort of challenge is Gloucester facing to break into that top echelon?
As much as we’ve strengthened our squad, I genuinely think the Premiership is getting stronger and stronger year-in, year-out. That was illustrated last season in the way Saracens dominated Europe and the way English clubs dominated the knockout stages. Clubs on the whole have recruited very well and the challenge for lots of us is how we integrate those new signings into our system. In an ideal world you would limit your recruitment to a single digit number of players because you want that consistency in how you play. That’s what brings success and if you look at Saracens, they haven’t recruited a huge number of players but they’ve recruited top, top quality. That’s what Gloucester are aspiring to do and we believe we’re getting there.
Do you cast an envious eye at your old Ulster mate Mark McCall at Saracens?
I’m not sure about envy, but certainly a huge amount of respect. He’s done incredibly well and Saracens have worked really hard for their success, so our challenge now is to match them and emulate their cup-winning achievements.
Is Gloucester a club that can genuinely aspire to winning Premierships and Champions Cups?
I’ve absolutely no doubt about it. So many of the fundamentals are in place, on and off the field and in the support the players have. People talk about the history of this club but this group of players and management now have to write our own history, we can’t be under the shadow of what former Gloucester teams have done. We’re very proud of what they’ve achieved but we want to write the next few years for ourselves and it’s within our grasp to do that. I’m very excited about this year.
Having only one player, Jonny May, named in England’s 45-man EPS might be seen as a blessing?
That’s not the way we’re looking at it. We see it as a real negative that we don’t have English players in the EPS. We’ve a number of players who have been there and a number who are ambitious to be part of the squad and represent their country, but I don’t see the current situation as in any way being positive or satisfactory. We’ll lose players to other nations so that provides challenges, but from my point of view we want as many people as possible in that EPS squad.
What do you say to Matt Kvesic, who must be sick of being overlooked by England?
Nobody can ever question Matt’s commitment or his attitude and he works unbelievably hard. This is a setback and he’s disappointed not to be involved with England, but he also knows the way to change mindsets, and Eddie Jones‘ view on him, is how he plays for Gloucester. He’ll get plenty of opportunities to do that this season and he knows what he’s expected to work on. You’ll not get any player in the Premiership who works harder on his game than Matt and I’ve got no doubt that at some point in the future he’ll be the starting No.7 for England.
Expecting great things of gifted fly-half Billy Burns this season?
It’s been a big pre-season for Billy. He’s obviously still a young man at 22 and still relatively inexperienced, but as an outside-half the only way to develop your game understanding and career is by playing, so we’ve got to give him those opportunities this season. We felt we managed him well before his injury last season and he got game time at 10 and 15 and came off the bench a lot. He got a much better understanding of what’s required to win games and Billy Burns is a player you’d hope Gloucester can build a team around to allow him to achieve his potential. We’re fortunate to have the experience James Hook brings and over the last couple of years he’s been central to a lot of our big victories, so we think we’ve got a good combination there. But this is a big year for Billy and a good opportunity for him to establish himself in the pecking order of some very good English No.10s.
It’s a big year for you personally, too, because it surely won’t be acceptable for Gloucester to keep bumping around in 8th or 9th place?
None of us in Gloucester are here to finish 8th or 9th, we have ambitions way beyond that and all our planning, all our work over the summer has been around making sure we’re not that low this year. We realise the league is terribly competitive, with every team having similar ambitions to us and even beyond where we are, but we believe we have taken some big steps forward over the last  two years and now it’s about putting all the different parts of our game together and performing in arguably the best league in the world.
You defeated top teams last season, any reason why you can’t achieve the top four?
There’s not any question that we can do it and we beat teams like Wasps and Exeter, but it’s about consistency and bringing our A-game every week. If you want to be near the top of the Premiership, as we do, you have to have that consistency. You know you’re not going to be at your best every week, but you’ve got to be at a level that allows you to win most weeks.
On a wider rugby issue, as a proud Ulsterman do you fear for rugby in Ireland after recent reports of a cash crisis at Munster?
I’m not sure I would necessarily agree with all the doom and gloom. When you look at the recruitment Ulster in particular have done, they’re competing at the top end of the market and bringing in some world-class players.
The strength of the Irish system lies in the academies and their identity, with people growing up wanting to represent their provinces. They have a pretty closed market place there in terms of bringing through local players with ambition and as long as they have that identity of wanting to represent Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht, I think Irish rugby’s in pretty safe hands.
If you look at the success Connacht had last season, they’ve moved forward massively. Ulster have a very strong financial model in place with their new stadium and Leinster have got a conveyor belt of talent which keeps producing world class players. Dan Tobin, our head of S&C, says there’s another generation of players coming through there, so while there’s no doubt Munster are in a transition phase, I think the Irish system is in pretty good shape.
Ireland are bidding to host the 2023 World Cup, good or bad thing?
I think it’s a fantastic opportunity to bring the world game to Ireland and grow the game there. There are so many wonderful stadia, not just in rugby but through GAA, and with the support and sporting interest that’s already in Ireland, everybody would get behind it. A World Cup in Ireland would be a massive boost on a number of levels, from growing the game to the huge economic benefit it would bring.