By Cherrybomb
May 9 2002

On Sunday Gloucester travel to Leeds needing 5 points to possibly clinch second place from the grasp of Sale. Now that Rotherham have been unfairly refused promotion Leeds have nothing to fight for except their dignity. Gloucester's away form has been poor, and they will want to rectify that. I think that it is fair to say that Gloucester have been a better team than Sale this season and second place will probably be a fair reflection on the year. We also need second place for a home quarter and semi final in the Zurich championship, and what people haven't really though about is that the higher the seed that we get for the Heineken Cup, the easier the group will be.

After the right royal slaughter we gave Bath on Saturday (see funny stuff), Junior Paramore has joined a long list of players to agree a new Kingsholm deal. The 33 year old Samoan, who has gone over 11 times this season, will have been at Gloucester for five years when his contract ends. With so many players signing new deals, the team of next season shouldn't differ too much from the team of today. As Leicester have proved if you limit changes it pays off, and one or two big signings in the summer, perhaps in the second row and a full back, would set us up for an even more successful season from September.

Craig Gillies has been named in the Gloucester squad following Mark Corwall's broken arm against Bath. He was pushed in the lineout and fell backwards, tumbling over, much like Olivier Azam had done earlier in the game, and landed badly breaking his arm, ruling him out for the rest of the domestic season and meaning he won't be able to represent England against the Barbarians. Gillies is back up for Fidler and Pearce who are the likely lads to start.

The rest of the team is unlikely to alter much, with hopefully Sinbad either on the wing or at centre. Henry Paul will also probably play full-back after he played his best game in a Cherry-And-White shirt on Saturday. His good clearing and clever attacking help the team to victory.

Leeds will probably be very happy that Rotherham had been refused promotion, as they were almost certain for the drop. This makes Saturday's game less important for them, and hopefully this will let us in. The terrible way the RFU has handled issues this season, i.e. the relegation affair, racism claims, Martin Johnson punch etc. has angered many. If you would like to write a story for the site titled "The RFU: What they are doing wrong" including all these points please e-mail me: cherrybomb@glosrfc.com. Even if you are not a Gloucester fan I will be willing to hear the views of a different supporter on any of the cases, i.e. the Rob Andrew affair in the eyes of a Newcastle fan.

Predicted Score: Leeds 17-43 Gloucester

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This week has also been an important week for glosrfc.com. New records for site page views has made this one of the most viewed Gloucester Rugby Club sites, so I would like to thank everyone who has used the site and aired their views on many issues on the messageboard. I would like to make this site more of a supporters site, so please e-mail any comments to comments@glosrfc.com Thank You!

Also any pictures that you, the fans, have taken using a digital camera at any Glos match would be more than welcomed. Again e-mail me using an address above. A picture of the scoreboard from Saturday would be very much appreciated! (no stealing!)