Gareth Anscombe has shown exactly the type of man he is with a rousing team talk for Gloucester last week.
In behind-the-scenes footage on Gloucester’s ‘Behind The Badge’ series, the focus was brought to Anscombe ahead of their derby against Bath.
One part of the video shows the Wales international addressing his team-mates at training, and at the match itself. Despite Lewis Ludlow being skipper of the Cherry and Whites, Anscombe certainly showed that he is one of the leaders, with stirring words of encouragement.
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“I want to f*****g hear you,” announced Anscombe to his fellow players. “I want us set early, it gives us clarity that we’ve got f*****g options. All right? That’s all I want – breakdown focus. Let’s have some f*****g physicality, ay? You big boys? This is the f*****g time.”
With the skipper about to deliver his own speech, fellow Wales star Tomos Williams added: “Come on lads. Get your heads up and get your f*****g eyes on him (Ludlow) now.”
Earlier in the week, Anscombe had been giving out similar encouragement to his players in a team meeting.
“He [Bath player] will break the five when he takes the ball,” he said when analysing match footage. “So just be alive to either side when he takes the ball. When he goes, we go. Because he will try to take the ball in line with the scrum, so we’ve got to match that. Be alive to it, if he goes, we’re f*****g going.”
During his interview with Gloucester, which was played throughout the episode, Anscombe offered elite-level analysis of the game, and explained how the team can become consistent. Training footage showed him sharing wisdom with the likes of Max Llewellyn.
Speaking to his fellow men at training,Gareth Anscombe said: “Make sure we change our height. We f*****g wreck into the breakdown. Our departure times are key to that. Make sure we get departure times right boys, we’re nice and connected, we’ll look after everything else.
“Defensively, we’re getting up off the line, we’re getting set where we’re going, we stay in the fight boys. Tomorrow there will be a f*****g fight. We’re staying in it, we won’t be the first team that breaks. Lastly boys, keep backing our tempo. We don’t need to go to the f*****g defensive game, kicking everything away. We have our kick options, but our tempo will set the tone.
“Give me that physicality boys, me and Tommy, Chucky when he comes on – we’ll f*****g run our tempo. We’ve got plenty of energy about us, okay? Look forward to it.”
Unfortunately for Anscombe and Co, it was a 55-31 loss in a a 12-try thriller at Kingsholm, but they’ll be hoping the promise they’ve shown in the opening games will translate into results as the season goes on.
