By Leipziger
December 20 2006

The Falcons will play their final away match of 2006 on Friday in a hot atmosphere under the Kingsholm lights, against one of the Premiership’s form teams of the season so far and their vociferous fans. Gloucester and local rivals Bristol have jockeyed for top spot in the table, with Bristol currently ahead courtesy of three try bonus points having beaten the Cherry n Whites at the Memorial Stadium during the last round of Premiership matches in November. Mark Regan scored the only try of the evening for the home side, with David Hill and Jason Strange adding kicks to win 14-12. Gloucester’s points came from four Willie Walker penalties.

Gloucester’s strength is based on a strong and powerful pack containing the likes of French front-rowers Christian Califano, Olivier Azam and Patrice Collazo, lock Alex Brown (one of the ten most influential players in Premiership history!), and Premiership player of the year in 2003 Jake Boer. Adam Balding and the skillful James Forrester and Andy Hazell can also be called upon in the back row.

Behind the scrum, is a mixture of Mike Tindall’s power, James Bailey’s pace and James Simpson-Daniel’s creativity, and all three started against Bristol alongside new England centre Anthony Allen. World Cup winner Iain Balshaw made the switch to Kingsholm from Leeds in the summer, whilst both Ryan Lamb and Olly Morgan will be challenging soon for international honours one assumes. And let us not forget England scrum-half Peter Richards and kicking machine Ludovic Mercier.

Our opponents have of course just completed a Heineken Cup double over Edinburgh, culminating in a 14-31 victory at Murrayfield on Sunday when Tindall, Morgan, Allen and Luke Narraway scored the tries to get Gloucester a vital bonus point, although with eleven points they are second in their group behind Leinster and the fifth best amongst the current prospective runners-up.

This fixture last season, on Bonfire Night, saw captain-for-the-day Jonny Wilkinson score fifteen of his side’s twenty points, with a try, two conversions and two penalties. Cory Harris scored the other try, but it was to no avail as scores from James Forrester, Peter Richards and the boot of Ludovic Mercier set up a 27-20 home win. The Falcons’ last win at Kingsholm was the controversial 27-29 win of April 1998, which was such a huge step towards winning the Championship.

Gloucester have also not lost at KP since October 2003, a run of six games for us without a win against the West Country boys.

The Falcons travel with six changes to the side which beat Montauban at KP on Sunday, with the three new foreign forwards brought in, Joe McDonnell captaining in Matthew Burke’s absence. Burke is covered by Anthony Elliott at full-back, whilst John Rudd and Mark Mayerhofler also start after Jamie Noon injured an ankle at the weekend.

15 Anthony Elliott
14 Tom May
13 Mathew Tait
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 John Rudd
10 Toby Flood
9 James Grindal

1 Joe McDonnell (captain)
2 Matt Thompson
3 Micky Ward
4 Mark Sorenson
5 Jason Oakes
6 Eni Gesinde
7 Ben Woods
8 Russell Winter

Replacements:
Jon Golding
Rob Vickers
Andy Buist
Brent Wilson
Tom Dillon
Lee Dickson
Loki Crichton