The Cherry and Whites will be looking for a fifth win in a row when they travel down to Sandy Park this weekend for their round 16 match-up against Exeter Chiefs.
George Skivingtons men are in immense form at the moment with them sitting high-up the table in third place.
They’ve only had one loss since the new year so they have all the momentum going into this game.
Exeter on the other hand are finding It hard to string together more than two wins a row. In their last five games they’ve only won once and that was back during the middle of January.
However Skivington is not getting over-confident in the build-up.
“I expect it to be tight, I expect it to be very physical and I expect it to be an extremely hard-working game which they always are with Exeter.
“Exeter have prided themselves for so long of having the ability to slip players in and out without it effecting their systems or what their about…I think it’s going to be very hard.”
Both teams have been depleted quite heavily due the Guinness Six Nations currently taking place.
Gloucester will be without Louis Rees-Zammit, Chris Harris, Mark Atkinson and Jonny May and their opponents will be without the likes of Stuart Hogg, Jonny Gray, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Sam Simmonds, Jack Nowell, Sam Skinner and Henry Slade.
The Gloucester team this week is almost a mirror of last-weeks squad that beat London Irish, the only change being Jordy Reid has been boosted to the starting line-up after not playing last round.
Jack Clement finds himself back on the bench.
Due to Gloucester’s international omissions Skivington was quick to emphasise the importance of the fans and how they’ve helped the team to march through competition through-out the season.
“It’s really important that’s something we did talk about in pre-season, people pay with their hard-earned cash to come it’s a very proud rugby town and in my opinion there’s no place like Kingsholm when it’s buzzing.
“We knew if we turned up and worked very by hard putting the physicality on the field it would show how much people care about playing for the club the supporters would be with us whether things go well or don’t go well.”
Gloucester’s ability away from Kingsholm has been impressive this season with them only dropping one game on the road.
Since then they’ve manged to beat the likes of Saracens and Wasps in hostile territory.
Another win could really set Gloucester for top four finish, however Skivington is keeping himself and the team grounded due to the nature of sports.
“We’re happy being at the better end of the table but I think we’re also realistic you know you could lose a couple of games then suddenly you find yourself three or four places down the table and there’s some teams getting stronger.
“I think it’s going it’s going to be the tightest premiership we’ve seen in the top half of the table, I think it’s going to be ruthless as is it goes on through the next couple of months.”
It’s not being televised due to the Six Nations but we could be looking at one of the games of the weekend, especially after the late drama that happened in the Chief’s game against Wasps last week.
