Gloucester Rugby: Charlie Sharples - We need power and flair

HIT full steam at London Irish and Gloucester can set their new era on an even keel, believes Charlie Sharples writes Nick Purewal.

England wing Sharples hardly had any chance to strike with the ball in hand in Saturday's season-opening 24-19 Northampton defeat.

Gloucester flailed for fluency in the first half, then spurned a host of half-chances to win the game in the second.

The Cherry and Whites' back three were underused before the break, then misused after it.

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Hong Hong-born Sharples has now called on Gloucester to strike the right blend of forward power and backline flair in order to claim victory at London Irish on Saturday (kick-off 3pm).

Nigel Davies' men are gunning for their first competitive win as a group at the Madejski Stadium – and Sharples said an early win would do wonders for their season.

He explained: "Things go very quickly once the season starts, it'll be Christmas before we know it – so it's up to us to get on an even footing as fast as we can.

"No one wants to be chasing our tails or playing catch-up, so the sooner we can level out, the better- and clearly the first chance to do that is at Irish.

"We've got the talent and the personnel, now we've just got to tie it all together.

"We know where we went wrong, and now we've got to tidy that up for Irish.

"We've got to swallow and get on with it.

Calling on Gloucester to tighten up their finishing in Reading, former St Peter's High School pupil Sharples said the Cherry and Whites have all the credentials to build on solid pre-season foundations.

The 23-year-old continued: "We put ourselves under so much pressure in the first half that we struggled, we gave them a lot of field position and that allowed them to gain up front.

"In the second half we dealt with that a lot better, and we got a handle on things.

"It's just a shame we couldn't capitalise on it at the end – we had chances, and we weren't clinical enough.

"If we'd been more clinical we might have got the win.

"So that's clearly something to we've got to sharpen up this weekend.

"In the first half we barely had any time in their half, so we couldn't create too many chances to move the ball wide.

"We showed in patches the strides we've made across the last three months, and now we've got to carry that through and start completing the job."