Gloucester are without five of their senior players with international call-ups for skipper Jim Hamilton (Scotland) and Freddie Burns, Ben Morgan, Charlie Sharples and Billy Twelvetrees - all in the England camp.
Also ruled out due to injury are the likes of Alex Brown, Darren Dawidiuk, Gareth Evans, Sione Kalamafoni, Shaun Knight, Jonny May, Ryan Mills, Olly Morgan, James Simpson-Daniel, Tim Taylor and Henry Trinder while Andy Hazell is still suspended.
Conscious of key up and coming home fixtures against London Welsh in the LV= Cup and Sale Sharks in the Aviva Premiership, Davies has elected to hold back some of his other experienced players to avoid the risk of injury with some important competitive fixtures in the context of the whole season still to come.
And, as Davies outlines, tonight's encounter against Fiji is a positive for the club, handing an exciting opportunity for a number of Gloucester's young prospects to rise to the occasion and benchmark their progress and ambition.
"The Fiji game is a great opportunity for some of our younger players to show what they are capable of against an international touring side.
"They may not play against a team like Fiji very often in their careers. I'm sure that they're going to make the most of it, do themselves and Gloucester Rugby proud and create memories that will stay with them for a very long time.
"For our supporters, it's a chance to see some of the talent coming through and to back a group of younger lesser known players at a home game which I know these young players will relish playing in front of their loyal home crowd.
"It's a difficult time of the season with so many players unavailable for a variety of reasons. The fixture list is pretty relentless and we manage our resources carefully and with a long-term view based on our ambitions and targets for the whole season. We've a number of players sidelined and others are carrying knocks and need to rest up."
