Cherry & Whites face a tough fixture against La Rochelle

The Cherry & Whites face a stiff challenge at Kingsholm against the visiting La Rochelle.

Gloucester had a disastrous start to their campaign as they were crushed 55-10 by Lyon in the opening round at the Matmut Stadium. Gloucester boss George Skivington elected to field a young side who appeared quite out of their depth against their French counterparts who cruised along in comfortable fashion throughout the 80 minutes, never really looking threatened. In the end, they dotted down a total of 8 tries, including a hat-trick from Xavier Mignot.

In the second round, however, Gloucester were much better prepared, and managed to put Irish rivals Ulster to the sword 38-34. Ulster were their own worst enemies in the clash, seeing two yellow cards in as many minutes which put them on the back foot. Gloucester showed real guts despite their numerical advantage and, in particular, utilised their mauling skill to great effect. Ulster being Ulster, however, refused to be pushed over and, once they had a full complement of players back on the pitch, mounted a comeback which was helped by Louis Rees-Zammit being sent to the cooler for 10 minutes. With 15 minutes to play, the scores were locked at 24-24 and some great action transpired until the final whistle sounded.

La Rochelle enjoyed a fairly narrow but valuable victory over Edinburgh in Round 1. While it wasn’t pretty, it was a stout effort from both sides.

La Rochelle were fortunate to be awarded 5 points for their fixture against Bath after the latter elected to withdraw after complications due to Covid-19.

The last time these two met was in the semi-final of the 2016-17 – an explosive encounter for which La Rochelle will desire revenge this time around after a narrow loss.