Murphy says Gloucester Hartpury's defeat by Trailfinders lifted pressure ahead of PWR semi-final

Gloucester Hartpury Head of Rugby Dan Murphy said Friday’s defeat to Ealing Trailfinders Women — the club’s first loss since Bristol Bears’ 19-14 win at Kingsholm in November 2023 — has taken the pressure off his squad ahead of the Premiership Women’s Rugby semi-finals, where the two sides will meet again.

The three-peat champions had gone 14 matches without defeat, collecting a try-scoring bonus point in every one of those games. They did leave Friday’s fixture with two bonus points, but Murphy was clear that an unbeaten season was never the objective.

“I have been asked this question [about the unbeaten run] a lot lately, ever since someone mentioned that Arsenal had done it about 20 years ago,” Murphy told BBC Radio Gloucester. “I have always said that this was never something we were going after as a group. This team want to get better as a team and help those around them so that we perform well. We have a lot of that to do this week but the monkey is off our back now, so away we go.”

Murphy acknowledged that Trailfinders had provided a blueprint for the rest of the league and that Gloucester Hartpury must find answers before the sides meet again at Kingsholm in the PWR semi-final. “Ealing have just shown the rest of the league how to beat us and we need to stop them doing it again,” he said. “It was a helter-skelter week, bringing everyone back in together after such a long time apart, but we are disappointed to lose the game in the manner we did. To come back and get two points off that game was brilliant and showed what we can do, but we need to work out how we get better from today.”

The club faces those semi-final preparations without two senior players. Zoe Stratford and Natasha ‘Mo’ Hunt will both miss the remainder of the season — Stratford through pregnancy and Hunt through injury. Women’s Rugby World Cup-winning captain Hunt will leave the West Country at the end of the season to join Sale Sharks, alongside Tatyana Heard and Friday night’s stand-in skipper Sarah Beckett.

Gloucester Hartpury close out their regular season against second-bottom Bristol Bears on Sunday before turning their full attention to the Trailfinders rematch.