Gloucester Rugby vs Leinster Rugby
Heineken Champions Cup Round 3 Pool A
Kingsholm, Gloucester
Saturday, 14th January 2023, 15:00

TV: Live: BT Sports

Leinster are back in European action this week and they face an awkward trip to the South West of England.

Last week Leinster had some good preparation in a properly tough match. The Ospreys largely laid waste to the Leinster scrum and made their life a misery at the breakdown with the ageless Justin Tipuric giving a masterclass. This undoubtedly contributed to the struggles of the starting half-backs but ultimately there was still enough class and experience in the squad to get the crucial scores at a late stage and maintain the 100% record for the season.

Gloucester will certainly be hoping to make things tougher for Leinster than they did a month ago in the RDS. Gloucester head coach George Skivington effectively conceded the game, even though Gloucester had won their first European match against Bordeaux Begles. Their selection was justified on the basis that they'd probably have lost anyway (true) and it would give their first team a better chance in the run of Christmas/New Year games (maybe??). So how did those three games go?

Well they were well beaten by Leicester first up, yep that's the same Leicester team that would be absolutely smashed by Sale and mighty Newcastle in their next two games. Then they managed a 8-6 squeaker of a win over London Irish before losing unfortunately to Saracens last weekend in a match where England Captain Owen Farrell miraculously avoided being sent off for a high tackle yet again. Gloucester played well and were robbed of at least a draw but can they put that disappointment into a performance this week?

Skivington is certainly going for it this week (the crowd wouldn't let him out alive if he didn't) and he's named a team showing just two changes to last week. Both those changes are in the backline where George Barton and Seb Atkinson come in to start. There is plenty of international quality in the backline in the likes of Jonny May, Chris Harris and Argentinean out-half Santi Carreras. They have also named an experienced back row in Ruan Ackermann, skipper Lewis Ludlow and number eight Ben Morgan.

For Leinster there was another injury last week with Charlie Ngatai adding his name to a lengthy list that has seen the prop and three-quarter stocks cut very tight. So the team has largely picked itself this week with the in-form Jamie Osbourne moving into the number twelve jersey from the outside channel. Garry Ringrose is back to captain the team from thirteen and the back three is the same with Hugo Keenan at full back and Jordan Larmour and Jimmy O'Brien on the wings. Jameson Gibson-Park and Ross Byrne come in to start at half-back. Andrew Porter comes in to start in the front row alongside Dan Sheehan and Michael Ala'alatoa. James Ryan and Ross Molony are the second rows and Ryan Baird, Caelan Doris and Josh van der Flier are the back row.

You would expect Gloucester to at least make a game of it this weekend, but hopefully Leinster still have enough quality to earn the win.

by Jim O'Connor, © 2023-01-13