Davies reshuffles but Gloucester up for Thomond challenge

Gloucester director of rugby Nigel Davies looks set to abandon the principle of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ and rotate his winning squad for tomorrow’s Heineken Cup showdown with Munster at Thomond Park (6pm).

Davies watched his players, spearheaded by fly-half Billy Twelvetrees, overcome a powerful Perpignan side 27-22 at Kingsholm last Saturday in their Pool 6 opener.

Yet former Scarlets boss Davies will ring the changes and stick to a policy of using the opening two pool games to rotate his squad having informed his players a week ago that he had selected two different line-ups to face first Perpignan and then Munster.

England No.8 Ben Morgan, tighthead prop Rupert Harden and hooker Darren Dawidiuk were the three main regulars from the start of the English Premiership campaign to sit out the Perpignan win while England wing Charlie Sharples was an unused replacement. Twelvetrees, who kicked 17 points, was set to be rested until illness and injury struck the Gloucester camp when centre Henry Trinder and fly-half Freddie Burns were late withdrawals, forcing the Lions centre to play at 10 with England U20 Ryan Mills installed at inside centre.

Both Burns and Trinder are available this weekend and could be given runs at Thomond Park with Twelvetrees returning to midfield and another fly-half, Jonny Bentley, also in contention to start.

“It will be a group of players champing at the bit to show what they can do too, out in Munster,” Davies said. “Right now I couldn’t tell you what my first team is. Three or four of them are nailed-in, but after that it’s all up for grabs, so we’re still going to use these two games to establish that.”

Davies is backing the new blood coming into his side to maintain the momentum against a Munster side which fell to a shock opening Heineken Cup defeat to Edinburgh at Murrayfield.

“Edinburgh’s win opens up the pool, but that doesn’t change our challenge in Munster,” said Davies. “We know full well what to expect: a fierce pack, nudged around the field by shrewd tactical kickers and a backline that can cause some real damage. And Munster will be looking for the kind of reaction that we were after against Perpignan.

“It’s going to be a huge challenge. The good thing is that there’s a group of boys who didn’t play on Saturday who will know they have to step it up themselves. They are desperate to play, they’ve been rested: so they should be fresh and in the right frame of mind.”

Gloucester visited Thomond Park in pre-season, losing 28-17 on August 24 but Davies sees only positives from the trip. “We got the feel for the place in pre-season, so we know what a massive task is in front of us.

“But also I would imagine the pressure will be pretty much on Munster to get a result. Whether that works in our favour or not is another matter, but either way, we’ve got to be wary of that and expect a backlash.

“We’ve done the first job which was to secure a home win first-up, that’s fundamental to what we need if we’re going to progress in this tournament. That gives us the right to have a shot at Munster, but we absolutely must expect they will come out spitting fire.”