Gloucester captain Willi Heinz believes that they are lacking “effort” in training which is affecting their performances on the weekend.
The Cherry and Whites, under the guidance of Johan Ackermann, have enjoyed a fine season so far and currently reside in fourth position in the Premiership.
They were slightly off the pace, though, in their 22-19 defeat to Northampton Saints, who had gone seven league matches without a win before Saturday’s encounter.
Following that loss, Heinz questioned their preparation and is expecting higher standards from his team-mates.
“I look at that game and I look at the way we’ve been training and the amount of effort we’ve been putting in and I’ve got to question the guys’ effort,” he told Gloucester Live.
“Collectively we’re just not doing enough because we’re coming to these games and getting ourselves in the right areas, but just our inability to execute and really put that pressure on teams hasn’t been there for the last couple of weeks and we’ve just got to start digging a bit deeper.
“I just think it comes into the amount of effort we’re putting in during the week.
“We’re training hard but are we training smart? Are guys putting in all those little extras we need to so that when we are under pressure and we are in the right areas of the field we can keep the foot on the throat?
“We had so many opportunities in good areas of the pitch and just our inability to really be good with the ball or capitalise on the opportunities they gave us was just really frustrating.”
Despite the recent setback, Heinz is pleased with their league position but admits that there must be an improvement if the Cherry and Whites are to qualify for the play-offs.
He added: “I guess we are still in a good position but if we are going to stay there, we’re fooling ourselves if we think that level of performance is going to keep us there.
“We’ve got a break from the Premiership now but once we get back into it at the end of January, start of February, it’s going to really heat up and teams are going to be getting better and better. If we want to stay there we’re going to have to get better and better.”
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