Massive game could define Glaws season

Friday night in Newcastle, the party capital of the North, means a lot of different things to a lot of people - to thousands it means a night out on the tiles, but to Bryan Redpatrh and hias Gloucester team is means a massive Premiership game that could define their season.

After three consecutive defeats, albeit two of them in the Heineken Cup, Glaws are in need of a tonic, and if they don’t get it at Kingston Park, they are in deep trouble.

Not as deep as the struggling Falcons, admittedly, but certainly deep enough to suggest that they can shelve any ambitions for a play-off place this season.

Glaws don’t have a good recent record in away games against the Falcons, but a defeat this time really would be little short of a disaster.

Redpath admits that after last weekend’s home defeat against Leicester, the Falcons game is a massive one ... and that is no understatement.

Glaws can’t afford to be distracted with all that is going on off the pitch – Mike Tindall’s partial vindication, Redpath’s belief that Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu will not be banned by the IRB and the club’s delay on setting a budget for next season.

What matters is the match, and nothing less than a win – a good win – will do.

That game is followed by a series of tough matches and Redpath told the club website: "We have to focus on Newcastle now and then London Wasps here on Boxing Day before Saracens away and Worcester away.

After the Newcastle game, Glaws have their Heineken Cup double-header against Connacht, and Redpath added: "There's not much respite. There comes a time when you come up to Christmas that you know every game is a massive game.

"We've actually played reasonably well in our past couple of away games at Exeter and at Toulouse. We got the win at Exeter and then came within seven minutes of defeating Toulouse.

"We have to take the confidence from those games and also from the Leicester match as we hung in there despite the fact that most people would have said that they had the better team.

"We should have James Simpson-Daniel and Eliota back in the frame this week and also Andy Hazell to add to the mix. All three should add a bit of zip to everything.

"You add those three guys to the players who've been on duty recently and hopefully we can perform well enough to get a result up there, where we haven't performed in recent years.

"We can't rely on our home form this season so we've got to step things up in terms of our away results."