By Simon Dent
Gloucestershire All Golds head coach Lee Greenwood has conceded that his side will not make the top eight of Kingstone Press League One this season.
The All Golds have only won one of their first seven league games in 2016, but they did reach the semi-finals of the iPro Sport Cup, losing to this weekend’s finalists York City Knights.
Greenwood’s side trail eighth-place Newcastle Thunder by seven points, and the All Golds travel to Toulouse this Saturday in the only League One fixture.
“We won’t make the top eight,” Greenwood admitted. “It’ll be difficult for us to go on a seven-game winning run now and rely on other results working in our favour.
“All we can do now is try win as many games as we can for the remainder of this season and look to build for next year.”
Gloucestershire head to high-flying Toulouse, who remain unbeaten so far in the league, with the iPro Sport Cup being the only other fixture involving teams from League One this weekend.
Greenwood is an advocate of the French side’s readmission into the European rugby league system, and is hoping the trip gives a chance for his team to bond.
“I think it’s good to have Toulouse back in there,” he said. “They’ve done it the right way, obviously they’ve got a big budget, but they get some good crowds out there and the fans love their rugby.
“Our problem this season is that we don’t spend enough time together. We had a scratchy pre-season with players joining late so we didn’t get that togetherness straight away.
“Hopefully this trip will get us bonding, and it’ll be a great test for the players to have a go against some full-time players.”