It’s not often you get the chance to take on arguably the best club side in the world on your home patch; a fact not lost on Gloucester head coach George Skivington.

“We’re playing the best team in Europe and that’s not to be taken lightly at all. Hopefully the stadium will be full again. We’ve been working hard on areas we know we needed to work on, it’ll be extremely physical and intense and we’re looking forward to testing ourselves against the best.”

Skivington says everyone at the club is excited to test themselves against the four-time winners.“

Europe poses different challenges. It’s usually players or teams you haven’t seen much of. Leinster’s slightly different, a lot of these guys are household names...it’s one to be embraced.”

Tickets for Gloucester Rugby’s huge European clash with Irish giants Leinster can be purchased here.

Last week the Cherry & Whites were left heartbroken by Saracens, when England captain Owen Farrell dropped a goal with the clock dead, securing a 16-19 win for the London side.

“The emotions were high (after the game) and we were very disappointed. We worked very hard, and I thought the players gave their all and executed a pretty accurate game plan, but that's rugby. We’ve had a good look at what we could have controlled and where we could have been better and we’ve taken some good learnings from that game.

A week prior, it was Gloucester who secured a win with the last kick of the game, that time against London Irish.

“That’s the emotions of this game" said Skivington."You’re high and you’re low and the objective of being a professional is that you move on pretty quickly...But I was really happy with how they addressed both weeks.”

Upwards of 13,000 people attended the Friday fixture against Saracens while a capacity crowd turned out on New Year’s Eve to watch the Cherry & Whites pip London Irish.

Skivington hopes the Cherry & Whites fans were left satisfied by the effort of his players despite narrowly losing last weekend.

“The last two weeks has been what Kingsholm’s all about, it’s been electric. The crowd have been loud. Unfortunately, Saturday didn’t go our way but hopefully the supporters saw what the boys are about, they left everything out there.”

Skivington excited to welcome 'best team in Europe' to Kingsholm

Related News