Gloucester have become something of a bogey side for us, with only one win from nine against the Cherry and Whites, including two defeats and a draw last season.  The draw came at Kingston Park in a snowy February match, the visitors leading 6-22 at half time before a Newcastle comeback saw Mark Mayerhofler’s try put us 27-22 ahead with six minutes to go, but then only a missed conversion of Luke Narraway’s try and some lionheart defending from Tom May and Hall Charlton saved a draw.  Away we were defeated 31-17 in the Premiership and 23-16 in the playoffs.

Gloucester are having a decent season so far in the league having drawn at Worcester on the opening day, they then won three games in a row against Sale at home, Bristol away and then against Northampton at Kingsholm.  Their last Premiership outing was a 16-18 defeat at rivals Bath, however since that day (coming on the back of our 16-16 draw at Leicester), Gloucester won 26-10 in Bayonne and then destroyed Bucuresti 106-3 in the European Challenge Cup, James Simpson-Daniel scoring four tries and Rob Thirlby and Marcel Garvey two each.

So they approach Saturday’s game in decent form, however they may be missing the influential pairing of Terry Fanolua and Jake Boer through injury.  Adam Balding, the former Leicester back-rower, may return though.

We of course continue to be without Andy Perry through suspension, Colin Charvis is away with Wales and now Hall Charlton is injured, opening up a place in the XV for the first time this season to  James Grindal, with Lee Dickson on the bench.  We also look forward to the return, after a long absence, of Joe Shaw, but Mark Mayerhofler again misses out.  Stuart Grimes is injured and Anthony Elliott joins him on a mounting injury list.

We are now unbeaten in three matches, with only the Llanelli and Bath losses in our last seven.  As it is an away game, we can logically look forward to a decent performance, however our first win at Gloucester since April 1998 may prove just a bridge too far with Charvis, Grimes and Mayerhofler missing, against a side containing stars like Simpson-Daniel, Phil Vickery, Ludovic Mercier and (possibly) Andy Hazell.  Still, all is possible and I as always will be optimistic!

No Gloucester team as yet, but in the first of four weekends affected by the Autumn internationals, the Falcons squad is:-

15 Matthew Burke

14 Tom May

13 Mathew Tait

12 Toby Flood

11 James Hoyle

10 Jonny Wilkinson (captain)

9 James Grindal

1 Micky Ward

2 Matt Thompson

3 Robbie Morris

4 Luke Gross

5 Andy Buist

6 Mike McCarthy

7 Cory Harris

8 Owen Finegan

Replacements (from):

Tino Paoletti

Grant Anderson

Andy Long

Jason Smithson

Ben Woods

Joe Shaw

Lee Dickson

Dave Walder

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