Gloucester Rugby travel to Harlequins for Round 14 of the Gallagher Premiership this weekend. Ahead of the fixture, Cherry and White winger Charlie Sharples previewed the game.

On facing Harlequins with no relegation

“Externally, with no relegation, I guess the feeling might be that there is no pressure and that we can go out there and experiment and play with freedom but internally we’re obviously trying to develop a playing style and develop an identity and develop our performances so I don’t think that will be our mindset going into it.

“There will be a group of players going down there who will be wanting to put the best performance first and it won’t be about experimentation or trying new things. It will just be about trying to improve from last weekend and try and show a bit more of what we’re about.

“What I’m trying to say really is that we haven’t been talking about the pressure being off and that we’re not going to be relegated or any of that. We want to win games and we want to keep improving and we’re working hard to do that week in week out.”

On positive performances

“It’s given us a little bit of validation internally that the hard work that we’ve been doing is paying off. We’ve made a bit of a habit of making life difficult for ourselves this season with some of the games, you know, playing with 14 men and some of our ill-discipline. It felt like we were starting to get a little bit of momentum. The Leicester result is not a backwards step but we just have to keep working hard and keep heading in the right direction.

“We’ve shown that we’re a team that can win and we’re still a developing team but we’re not trying to experiment or throw caution to the wind. We want to try and develop a style of play that the coaches have come in and set us and have a really good crack at doing that.”

Press Notes | Charlie Sharples: “We know we're a team that can win"

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