Gloucester head coach George Skivington described Louis Rees-Zammit as being “gifted” after the wing played a starring role in their 38-22 victory over Exeter at Kingsholm on Friday.
The Wales international crossed for a deserved try and created another with a cheeky offload to his skipper, Lewis Ludlow, as the Cherry and Whites notched their fourth successive victory.
Outstanding attacking performance
That result means Gloucester move up to third in the Premiership standings and Rees-Zammit led the way for the home side with his outstanding attacking play getting the better of Exeter‘s defence which is usually very efficient.
“Louis is working so hard on his all-round game,” Skivington said.
“For me, the magical moments are great – he is gifted – but the hard work he is putting into defence, kick-chase, all the stuff that will make him a world, world-class winger is what is really impressive.
“The nearer the ball he is, the more happens.
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“He is a good kid, a humble kid. He is getting a lot of attention and he will be getting things thrown at him – all sorts of deals and what not – but he is very focused on what he is doing, he loves being here and being part of the team. He has got a good group around him.
“He has never moaned, never griped about anything. He is very happy to be challenged, and I am very happy to challenge him.
“We are desperate to get these guys more involved than they were last season. We’ve designed the gameplan a little bit better to get them involved.”
Although Gloucester will now lose Rees-Zammit to Wales for their upcoming Autumn Nations Series Tests, they will be determined to continue their excellent Premiership form.
“I think that was our best performance (this season) all round,” Skivington added.
“We are training well. We are still not executing everything, but we are playing against very good teams. We are getting there slowly.”
Rees-Zammit opened the scoring after just four minutes with fellow wing Santiago Carreras, hooker Santiago Socino, scrum-half Charlie Chapman, flanker Ruan Ackermann and Ludlow crossing for their other five-pointers which sealed their bonus-point win, while fly-half Adam Hastings added four conversions.
For Exeter, scrum-half Jack Maunder, lock Ruben van Heerden and wing Josh Hodge crossed the whitewash, while Harvey Skinner slotted two conversions and a penalty.
No complaints from Exeter
The defeat was the Chiefs’ third in six matches this season, and their head coach Ali Hepher had few complaints after the Friday’s encounter.
“We know the qualities they have got, and they executed them superbly well,” he said. “They were very clinical off our errors, but we made too many sloppy ones with the ball.
“The fight was there, certainly in that first half, but we did turn over too much ball.”