Vickery's final joy a relief for Lions

13 April 2012

England prop Phil Vickery ended a month of anxiety yesterday over his immediate future, to the relief of Gloucester and the Lions.

His response to an early front-row emergency banished fears over the Cornishman's availability for the Heineken Cup semi-final against Leicester at Vicarage Road on Saturday.

It also removed concern about the Lions assembling next month without their leading tighthead prop following his enforced withdrawal from England's breathtaking win over France 10 days ago.

Gloucester had planned to ease Vickery back in the last 20 minutes of what turned out to be a desperate match at the Madejski Stadium after he damaged his neck at Sale four weeks ago. Instead they had little option but to throw him in after French prop Stephane Sanchez pulled up lame in the seventh minute.

Vickery's scrum-capped presence in what was otherwise a second team was never going to prevent London Irish scrambling into the Premiership play-offs but, by returning to the dressing room in one piece, he proved Gloucester could count on him on Saturday.

According to coach Philippe Saint-Andre, Gloucester's other England prop, Trevor Woodman, has no more than a 20 per cent chance of making it.

That would appear to be 20 per cent more of a chance than London Irish will have of surviving their Premiership play-off quarter-final at Leicester, where the perennial champions have not been beaten by English opponents for more than three years. For most of a dreadful first half yesterday, the Irish played as if that fact was uppermost in their minds.

With Gloucester preoccupied, their opponents could not have wished for a less demanding route into the last eight. While Sale and Bristol gnashed their teeth at being squeezed out, the Irish made sure with three second-half tries.

Acting coach Conor O'Shea said: 'There's no hiding the fact that we didn't play well. Leicester away is a monumental task but in a sense it's great because we're under no pressure.'

The piecemeal end to the Premiership does nothing for its credibility. Instead of the last round of matches kicking off simultaneously, they were spread over three days, an arrangement which needs to be avoided through greater attention to detail by clubs, like London Irish, using football stadia.

Play-off positions are also being affected by clubs picking below-strength teams. Gloucester benefited when Leicester fielded a sub-par XV at Kingsholm last month a week after they had wrapped up the title, and yesterday Gloucester promoted six academy players to their side.

No-one did better than James Forrester, at 19 the youngest of the bunch, whose last-minute try erased the threat of Gloucester's heaviest defeat of the season.

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Vickery's final joy a relief for Lions

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