By Leipziger
May 6 2005

By Sunday night our season will either be finished, or we’ll be looking forward to a trip to Twickenham! Such is the beauty of playoffs!

Actually, a trip to Twickenham is just about the only good thing about playoffs for many people, but since we’re in the Zurich Wildcard semi-finals for the first time this weekend we might as well have a decent go at winning it and getting back into the Heineken Cup.

 

Our opponents, as for our last playoff match in May 2002, are Gloucester at Kingsholm.  That match saw the Cherry and Whites’ record victory over us, by 60-9, part of our current run of only one win in our last eight matches against Gloucester.  That came at Kingston Park in October 2003, when Tom May’s hat-trick inspired us to a 42-22 win.

 

At Kingsholm however, it is a very different matter.  We have not won there since April 1998, when a 29-27 victory inched the Falcons ever closer to the Championship.  Since then, however, we have been beaten on eight successive occasions, including the heartbreaking 25-23 loss in April 2003 after being 20-0 up, and the game back in September.

 

Having won our first three matches, we went south full of confidence but the Shed shouted Gloucester to a 31-17 win, the home side’s tries coming from Marcel Garvey, James Simpson-Daniel and Alex Brown, while Michael Stephenson replied for Newcastle.

 

And then of course in February a game that Gloucester looked to have in the bag by half time saw a topsy-turvy finish in a Kingston Park blizzard as a late try by Mark Mayerhofler seemed to have given us the points, only for Luke Narraway to hit back straight away and ensure the match ended in a 27-27 draw.

 

We should be able to expect plenty of points on Sunday in this clash between one team with the third worst defence in the Premiership, and the other with not only the worst defence but, bizarrely, the fourth best attack.  However, current form tells us little about what to expect.

 

Gloucester are currently on a run of four home defeats on the trot – Bath in the Cup, and Northampton, Leeds and Saracens last week in the Premiership.  Last week’s loss was by a single point 13-14 margin, with the Fez Boyz outscoring their hosts two tries to one.

 

All told Gloucester have lost their last three Premiership games and won only one of the last six, at London Irish in March.  However, we hadn’t won in six league outings before defeating the Exiles on Saturday, but at least have a tiny bit of form going into the game.

 

We will need it going into what is always an immensely difficult and intimidating ground to visit, especially when Gloucester are able to field England internationals James Simpson-Daniel and World Cup winner Andy Gomarsall, powerhouse centre Terry Fanolua and lock Alex Brown, named recently as one of the ten most influential players in Premiership history.  The injury list is long though, with Henry Paul, Andy Hazell, Marcel Garvey, Phil Vickery, and the always impressive Jon Goodridge all missing.

 

Having all three of Jonny Wilkinson, Matt Burke and new captain Colin Charvis in the team and in form will however increase immeasurably our chances of pulling off a shock result.

 

We need to win on Sunday, because personally I feel that if we lose (or win and lose the final) and don’t qualify for the European Cup, this season will have been a failure and we will have gone backwards from 2004.  So the big(ish) Geordie following heading to the other end of the country – let’s silence the Shed and roar the lads on to Twickenham!

 

The teams:-

 

Gloucester:-
15. Olly Morgan
14. James Bailey
13. James Simpson-Daniel
12. Terry Fanolua
11. Seti Kiole
10. Duncan McRae
9. Andy Gomarsall
1. Nick Wood
2. Mefin Davies
3. Gary Powell
4. Adam Eustace
5. Alex Brown
6. Jake Boer
7. Luke Narraway
8. Adam Balding (c)

Replacements:
16. Olivier Azam
17. Terry Sigley
18. Peter Buxton
19. James Forrester
20. Alex Page
21. Brad Davies
22. Mark Foster

 

Falcons:-

15 Matthew Burke

14 Tom May

13 Jamie Noon

12 Mark Mayerhofler

11 Mathew Tait

10 Jonny Wilkinson

9 James Grindal

1 Galo Alvarez Quiòones

2 Andy Long

3 Micky Ward

4 Luke Gross

5 Stuart Grimes

6 Colin Charvis (captain)

7 Cory Harris

8 Phil Dowson

 

Replacements:

 

16 David Wilson

17 Matt Thompson

18 Geoff Parling

19 Mike McCarthy

20 Hall Charlton

21 Dave Walder

22 Mark Wilkinson