Teague & Co are our inspiration – Ludlow

By ADAM HATHAWAY

LEWIS Ludlow revealed Gloucester had a pre-season turning back time as they tried to revert to their old DNA by taking inspiration from former local heroes.

New forwards coach Brett Deacon and Joel Tomkins, now in charge of defence, had identified a soft underbelly in the Cherry and Whites last season.

They wound back the clock with the squad with chats about legends of The Shed like ‘Iron’ Mike Teague, right, and Dave Sims who symbolised what Gloucester were about back in the day.

And back row Ludlow, with more than 250 club appearances to his name, admitted it was time to get back to basics.

The 32-year-old said: “With Brett and Joel coming in, we needed to change the mindset around the place. It needed to be a hard-nosed, particularly around the forward pack.

“We did a lot of stuff pre-season on ex-players, and what a Gloucester pack is, and what your 40, 50, 60-year-old in The Shed expects a Gloucester forward to be.

“People like Mike Teague, Dave Sims, your Andy Hazells and Peter Buxtons in terms of being hard-nosed.

“So, it was a different pre-season to what we’ve normally done. It was a lot tougher in terms of physicality and collision-wise. “And then you sprinkle on the little bits that everyone gets excited about, which we know is there for us. It is the other bit that we needed to get right, and actually the bit I think the proper Gloucester fans actually enjoy the most.”

Ludlow, one of rare group of men who have captained England on their debut, claims the back row depth available to Steve Borthwick is huge.

Hard-nosed: Lewis Ludlow

He is on the outside looking in after winning two caps, under Eddie Jones, in 2021 but reckons Borthwick could pick more than 20 back rowers and not got criticised thanks to the strength of the Prem. He added: “The baseline of the depth of English players is probably higher than it’s ever been. I’d say that would be the most competition between English players ever.

“You could pick anyone that could play in that English team. In most positions, there’s probably four, if not more, that could go in and everyone’s going, ‘yeah, that’s fair enough’.

“With the back rowers, you could probably pick 25. God knows how people do it, but they do.

“I think it’s the strongest Prem in terms of depth of English players. there’s been times when the league’s been full of foreign players.”