ROB baxter

Good afternoon and welcome to Sandy Park as we return to Gallagher Premiership action after completing the last two pool stage games in the Heineken Champions Cup.

The last couple of weeks have been really interesting for us, firstly our first visit as a club to South Africa to play the Vodacom Bulls followed by the return visit of Castres to wrap up the pool games.

The trip to Pretoria was well organised, well run and, for obvious reasons, interesting in a lot of ways. The players really enjoyed the challenge, but also come together really well as a squad. Early in the week we were open about the challenges of altitude and heat, but got on with training to a level that would open up the lungs and get the players aware of how the game would feel. By the end of the week, all the talk was about how we wanted to play and I thought we hit the pitch with a great attitude.

The senior players led the group really well through the week and it had the feeling of a mini tour which pulled the group in tight and accelerated our preparations. The game itself may not have been exactly what we wanted, but the understanding that a bonus point would be huge for us made sure the team kept focus, even after the red card, and we fought our way to four tries and a hugely valuable point.

The value of that point meant that going into the final round of games we could guarantee a home last 16 game with a fivepoint win, so things were still in our hands.

Again, was the game against Castres exactly how we wanted it to be? No, but this is where it is important to understand the challenges of travelling home from South Africa for a day (we arrived home on Monday lunchtime) and then a disrupted training week due to the freezing temperatures, we couldn’t even team run on Friday as the pitches had frozen solid overnight!

I do think this added to a good deal of our early inaccuracy in attack, but we still had a determination to defend really well and fight through a very tough first half until we claimed that vital fourth try and sealed the win.

I have to give the players a lot of credit on how they have handled the last two weeks and what they have achieved, as it turns out, due to other results, we can also claim a home quarter-final if we overcome Montpellier in the next round.However, that has to be put away for now.

We also have aims to be in the top four of the Premiership this season and it is clear that every game will be crucial, especially when we play the teams around us that are also targeting the top. That is what we face this weekend with the visit of Gloucester and we have to throw everything we can into the game to give us that opportunity to climb!

Finally, can I take this opportunity to welcome George Skivington, along with his fellow coaches, players, officials and supporters of Gloucester to today’s game.