We still have everything to play for

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Monday, June 22, 2009
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This is Gloucestershire

EVERYONE is pretty disappointed at the minute about Saturday's game, but we still have everything to play for in the series.

We just need to dust ourselves down and get back on the road again and take it all in and get back there again.

You have to remember, for some of those South African guys it has been their first game in a while as well, so perhaps they dropped off the pace a little bit towards the end – and perhaps they won't do the same again next week.

There are a lot of positives that we can take out of the game and there are also plenty of negatives, so it makes next weekend a big occasion again.

Before that we have to play the Emerging Springboks tomorrow and we went back down to Cape Town yesterday, so we don't really have time to dwell on it – we just have to move on.

We have got to be careful because I think South Africa will go away from the game and say they can play better then they did. But I think we will go away from it and say we can do things better as well.

So all in all it is difficult to talk about the game straight afterwards because you do not have a lot of time to really analyse it and look at it and find things you have done wrong and decide what you could have changed.

Ultimately we gave too many penalties away and in the scrum, for whatever reasons, they got their noses in front – and it was always going to be tough to get back in the game once they had done that.

But you must give huge credit to our guys. They stuck at it and created the opportunities.

Decisions by the third match official are always important and you like to think you will get one or two of them, but it did not happen, so you have just got to respect the decision and get on with it.

We have always said all week that we would support people.

There are people on the bench who will come on and are going to be used, so you have got to give it your all.

I certainly have no problem with Adam Jones coming on for me.

He had a great impact in the game and I have got no qualms about it at all.

Like I said, all you can do is just try and give everything you have got to the guys who are involved if you are not involved.

If you are involved, it is about going out and putting in a performance.

I was never led to believe that the scrum was an area that would be exposed against South Africa.

Scrums have gone very well on the tour for us so far, which is why I found some of the decisions the referee was making very strange.

But that is out of my control and out of everyone else's control, so you have just got to learn from it and deal with it and move on.

Referees at the scrums, what can you do? I have been in this game for so long now that I could talk about it until the cows come home.

It is just a shame we could not finish the game off.

It is difficult after the game to talk about it. There are things I have not seen because I have not actually watched the game, but we will think about that in the analysis when we do it.

It is hugely disappointing, but we can't feel sorry for ourselves. The series is not lost – it is an uphill battle, but there is the next game and getting yourself ready for it. It is still all to play for.

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  • Profile image for This is Gloucestershire

    by Dean, Gloucester

    Monday, June 22 2009, 11:05AM

    “For goodness sake!! Excuses Excuses Excuses!! We need younger, eager, fitter players, Vickery is testimony for that!!!”

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