By BrianC
September 9 2004

Buoyed by a comfortable, if unspectacular, victory against our old rivals Harlequins in the opening game of the season, this weekend sees us facing one of the toughest challenges in English club rugby as we head to Kingsholm to face Gloucester.

Gloucester have made their West country home something of a fortress over the years. The partisan crowd are probably the most vocal in the premiership. They always back their team to the hilt, no more so than at home. Our 29 - 35 victory  in the cup last season was our first one there in over ten years and was regarded by many as our best performance of last season. Even then it could even be argued that our victory was against a weakened Gloucester team, the world cup having somewhat depleted their squad.

Captained by a former London Irish favourite, Jake Boer, Gloucester shared the honours with us in the league last year. At the Madejski in September we won 16 - 10 . At Kingsholm in April they got their revenge winning comfortably 28 - 13. In their opening game of the season they beat the Tykes in Leeds 16 - 21 a result that was apparently more comfortable than the score suggests, Leeds having scored a late try.

The big Gloucester pack have always looked to dominate others and set up attacking platforms for the likes of Garvey. Whilst our lineout looked very solid against Quins, it faces a much stiffer task this weekend. Likewise, whilst our pack had the edge over Quins in scrums, it will be a much stronger outfit that we face on Saturday. If our forwards can hold their own against Glaws then we could well have a bright season ahead of us indeed.

On the evidence of last Saturdays game we are a sharper bunch than that of last season. There are still questions about our ability to distribute the ball, particularly without dropping it, from the forwards to the wing but the influence of Mike Catt does appear to be showing. At full back Delon Armitage shone, showing confidence and guile aplenty. Mike O'rak is going to have his work cut out trying to reclaim that spot.

As previously stated, winning at Kingsholm is no easy task. The bookmakers will most certainly have Gloucester as clear favourites, but then we are used to being the underdogs. Whilst I too would expect Gloucester to win, this strikes me as the best LI side I have seen since three years ago, the season we won the cup. If things come good on the day, you never know, we might just sneak it.