Aviva Premiership
Wood apologises for moment of madness
ESPN Staff
September 16, 2013
Referee Wayne Barnes issues Nick Wood a red card, Saracens v Gloucester, Aviva Premiership , Allianz Park, Barnet, September 15, 2013
Nick Wood is shown the red card for stamping on Jacques Burger © Getty Images
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Gloucester director of rugby Nigel Davies has revealed Nick Wood was full of remorse after he saw red in just the second minute of what turned out to be the Cherry and White's second loss in as many games this season.

Wood was issued a straight red card by Wayne Barnes for stamping twice on Saracens flanker Jacques Burger in the 73rd second of Sunday's game at Allianz Park. It was a moment that swung the match in the host's favour with Gloucester having to contend the rest of the game with just 14 men.

Gloucester went into the game on the back of a poor 22-16 loss at home to Sale last weekend - a match in which Wood was sin-binned - and Davies revealed post-match a remorseful Wood apologised to his team-mates for his moment of madness.

"It's very difficult for Nick, he's in bits in the changing room. I saw it on the big screen like everybody else and it didn't look great," Davies said. "Nick is not a dirty player and never has been. He's a good technician and a good rugby player.

"We'll look at the video and take it from there. The red card, as it was seen by the referee, was fair."

Burger went on to play the full 80 minutes for Saracens and he was full of praise for their opponents who even led at half-time 12-10 despite being a man down. He said: "Hats off to Gloucester they came out and lost a guy early on with a red card unfortunately but they came at us really hard for 80 minutes.

"I forgot how long 80 minutes is, it's a long time, and we had to stick at it, we had to work hard and fortunately we did that, we stuck to our plan and came away with a good victory. It is tough when you lose a guy early on, especially for them, but it's tough to adapt to that because all of a sudden you find yourself playing against 14 guys but not much changes.

"In the set pieces you gain a bit of an advantage because they had one guy off the field, it's just about sticking to your plan and doing what you would do against 15 men and we kept doing that and towards the end it paid off."

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