Gloucester
Glaws fight back for 34-12 friendly win
Olivier Azam - try
By Cherry Picker
August 9 2008
Gloucester staged a second-half fightback to beat a young Canada team 34-12 in their pre-season warm-up game in Ontario on Friday night. And one of the players who made life a little more difficult for them than they perhaps expected is a student at Hartpury College.
Fly-half Matt Evans, who comes from British Columbia, kicked two penalties and dropped a goal as Canada lead 12-8 at the break.
Evans was withdrawn for the second half, when Glaws took over with a penalty try to add to the first-half try scored by Mark Foster.
Dave Lewis scored another try from the back of a scrum and with the pack on top, Olivier Azam added another as Glaws took total control. Making his debut, former Wales and Llanelli centre Matt Watkins strolled over for another try.
Standing in for Dean Ryan, Glaws coach Bryan Redpath said: "I was disappointed with our execution and the basics in our game.
"Full respect to the Canadian boys, but I was more disappointed that we couldn't execute certain things and keep possession enough to make it more of a session for us to learn from.
"I think we learned a huge amount from it but I still thought some of the basics were poor."
The game was the first for Glaws played under the new ELVs, which will be introduced at the start of the season, and Redpath added: “We thought we would do some stuff with the new laws, but to be honest the game hasn't changed that much.
"The contact area is a little messier, but outside that there wasn't a huge amount different in that so I was never concerned."
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Quote:I imagine pre season can be pretty stale if you do the same things in the same places year after year
Sounds strangely similar to what DR said
It was great to see Django play, and Will James, Dave Lewis and Olly Morgan all impressed. One thought though, if all the squad went out to Canada, why did a lot of them not play? 