By Griff
December 29 2006

On New Year's Day we make our annual pilgrimage to the tractor-driving heartlands - Gloucester. Where away Full-Backs are all donkeys and the ref "Doesn't know what he's doing". Recent meetings of our two sides have been fairly exciting. Our home fixture was exciting and disappointing with the Cherry & Whites taking the points after Simpson-Daniel capitalised on a mistake (with a huge chunk of luck) holding onto Delon's chip after a rare Mike Catt wayward pass. It was during a period of big pressure for us and could easily have made it our day but it wasn't to be.

Before that game was the mental ERC Cup Final at the Stoop which the West-Country lads just shaded - but only just. Last season's GP games saw Irish taking a rare double over Gloucester, destroying them at the MadStad and hanging on for a hens-teeth win at Castle Grim.

Gloucester started the season well and have held top-spot this year but have had a couple of warning-sounding results. Edged out by rivals Bristol and then absolutely taken apart by Wasps. In between these Gloucester lost two HC matches, away at Leinster and, worse, home to Agen. They have a GP game in hand over the rest of the league as their pre-Christmas fixture agains Newcastle had to be postponed (traditional rugby grounds, eh ?).

So on the whole things have been going a bit wrong for the Kingsholm lads. While they've dropped out of the top four in the GP, it is only down to the fixture postponement - I think we all expect them to win their home Falcons fixture. They've had a run of poor form and will be very keen to turn that around.

Irish have, falteringly, had a bit of a run of good form. Taking Ulster to pieces will have given the lads a bit of a swagger (even with a complete reversal at Ravenhill). Winning "ugly" at Worcester and holding-their-own against mighty Leicester on Boxing Day will have the boys fired-up thinking they can take on anyone.

Castle Grim is, however, a daunting place to visit. The crowd are a 16th, 17th and 18th man for the home-side and the Cherry & Whites have played some lovely rugby this season. Their big lads are, as ever, very handy and their young back-line, when it fires, is a thing of beauty.

From the reverse fixture a bit of our front-row/tight 5 crisis is eased, we now have a pack that is firing and winning ball all over the pitch. We also have a back-line that, on its day, can scare the mightiest.

For me the over-riding factor is Kingsholm. It's tough to win there, and we did it last time, there will be a lot of pride at stake for the home side. I can't see us doing it but this team has proved me wrong more than once this season. So... do we believe ?