A Savage-sized hole in the squad

[LegendoftAutostrada]

With Franco Mostert at the World Cup and Tom Savage moving to Japan, Glos looked thin at lock before the season started. Now with the unfortunate injury to Ed Slater,there's a massive hole in the squad. Trying to fill that hole with back-row forwards hasn't worked. It is a concern that we've not tried either of the young locks (Craig and Linsell); perhaps they are not considered ready for the Premiership yet. An experienced replacement for Savage would have been among my summer targets (said so at the time and this is not just hindsight).

With matches against the behemoths of Toulouse and Montpellier to come, I am fearful of what might happen up front in those matches.

[StroudieGlaws]

This may well fit in very well with the 'how do we fix the scrum thread'.
We certainly do look light at lock and I don't think Clarke or Ruan are the answer. Both are back row forwards filling in. Mostert returning may help but if its to do with lacking weight in the second row then maybe not. Interesting to see SA use him off the bench and use bigger lock to start.