Matias Cortese

By Cherry Picker
May 25 2011

With players apparently queueing up to be positive about the season that's just ended and about the prospects for 2011-12, Gloucester are certainly going into the summer break with more of a feel-good factor than they have for several years. But hopefully coach Bryan Redpath won't allow that to lull him into a false sense of security in what could be the most important part of hi year.

There may not be any games and no formal training during the week, but Redpath is busy building his squad for next season – replacing players who are leaving and hopefully solving weaknesses that have cropped up over the last nine months.

He has already signed Argentinian hooker Matias Cortese, who appears to be expected to bring a confrontational style to the cherry and white front row.

With experience at Northampton, Biarritz and Bayonne under his belt, Cortese has one Argentina cap and has recently been playing in South Africa.

Redpath told the BBC: "Matias is joining Gloucester determined to make a real impact. I've spoken to him at length and he knows that he's got a real opportunity here and he's coming here to make the most of it."

"At 25, he's at that stage of his career where he knows that he needs to be playing regularly if he is to fulfil his undoubted potential and maybe add to the cap he won a few years ago.

"He's a big man who, as is usually the case with Argentinian front rows forwards, loves to scrummage. But he also likes to get his hands on the ball and get in people's faces."

Hopefully the same will apply to all the members of next season’s squad, but Cortese has a chance to make a name for himself in front of a crowd that appreciates his style of play.

Glaws finished the season as the third best club team in England (let’s face it, the Prem table is a more reliable guide than the play-offs, even allowing for the fact that the top two are in the final) and as winners of the LV= Cup.

But a club with Gloucester’s pedigree needs to go that little bit further, and Redpath knows that. That is why he admits that the next few weeks are going to be hugely important as he put and his coaching team put together their squad for next season.

in the case of Cortese, it’s a matter of the Glaws supporters waiting and seeing how good he might be, but opinions on most newcomers will be as varied as they have been on those the club has allowed to leave, like Olivier Azam and Nicky Robinson.

Let’s hope the feel-good factor we are taking into the break is still there after the first few games of the new season. It wasn’t there after last season’s opening few games.

Still a lot of work to do for Redpath

Discussion started by Shedloads (IP Logged), 25/05/2011 10:50

Shedloads
25/05/2011 10:50

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