Gloucester braced for another Red tide

“HELLO Munster Rugby,” said the clear English voice on the other end of the line.

And for a few hours yesterday morning it seemed that Gloucester Rugby HQ at Kingsholm had been overrun by a battalion of the Red Army in readiness for April’s Heineken Cup quarter-final.

The club’s media officer is Alastair Downey — he of the dulcet tones who had developed his own witty answering system for the slew of 353-prefixed numbers appearing on his telephone display since 9.30am yesterday. And don’t even mention the 9am onslaught on the ticket hotline in an effort to get one of the 4,000 seats on offer to visiting fans.