The Cherry & Whites complete their Heineken Champions Cup pool stages with a trip to Top 14 side Bordeaux-Begles tomorrow. Scrum-half, Stephen Varney, scored a try in Gloucester’s win over the French team at Kingsholm in December and says the boys can take confidence from the win.

“We’ve played them before, and it was a tough game.

"We’ve seen how they play, they’ve changed a bit, they kick a lot more, so it might open the game up a bit more and hopefully it will be a good game.”

Varney is looking forward to travelling to Stade Chaban-Delmas, and playing in front of the passionate French fans.

“It will be a big turnout and they’ve got really passionate fans like ours and playing against French teams is amazing and like I said the atmosphere will be great.”

Gloucester Rugby still has a good opportunity to progress to the Round of 16 of the competition, but the Italian international says the teams’ thoughts are firmly on winning the game.

“We’re going out there to get the win, that’s the most important thing."

Four-time Heineken Champions Cup winners Leinster, visited Kingsholm last week and came away 14-49 winners. Varney says although the defeat hurt, ultimately, they can take some good lessons from the Irish side.

“Leinster are a really good outfit, they’re a very well drilled side and we can learn a lot from that game.

“Leinster are such a good attacking side, and we can learn a lot from their shape and how they play, and we’ve been drilling that this week to hopefully we can come away with the result this weekend.”

Another bumper crowd packed into Kingsholm to see the Champions Cup fixture against Leinster, and Varney says the players appreciate the unwavering Gloucester support.

“We really appreciate the fans a lot and the support week in-week out is amazing.”

Varney was called up to the Italian Six Nations squad last week, and is aiming to go out on a high in his last outing before joining up with the Azzurri.

“I’ve got that around the corner, but all my thoughts are on this game and performing well this week.”

Joining Varney in the Italy camp is back-row Jake Polledri, with his first call up since his long-term injury left him out of action for 18 months. Elsewhere, George McGuigan has been called up by Steve Borthwick for England, Louis Rees-Zammit for Wales and Chris Harris for Scotland. The scrum-half says he always enjoys coming up against his fellow Cherry & Whites on the international stage.

“It’s good to play against them, training with them week in-week out I know how they play so it’s very interesting coming up against them.”

Kingsholm will play host to the U20s Six Nations fixture between England and Italy on Friday 10 February. Varney, who represented Italy U20s and U18s, including a memorable game against Wales at Kingsholm. Says international rugby at Kingsholm is special.

“It’s amazing, I played for Italy U18s and U20s, I played for the U18s here at Kingsholm against Wales and it was really special as I was in the academy here.

"The U20s is a brilliant platform for youngsters and I’m sure it will be a good game.”

The England U20s squad features four Cherry & Whites; prop Archie McArthur, hooker Finn Theobald-Thomas, second-row Danny Eite and full back Josh Hathaway. Tickets can be purchased here.

Varney says Gloucester must take confidence from round one win

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