IT is that time of the season when nobody is quite sure what the competition is this week, but Ospreys at Kingsholm in the LV=Cup should be a match that is well within Gloucester's grasp after the recent run of results.
The only fly in the ointment might be the weather, in particular the wind.
It is the big imponderable as a high wind can make a mockery of form as even the best players can struggle with the basic skills and underdogs will pray for as much of it as possible if they are facing a probable loss.
The recent European matches have yet again highlighted the amazing laxity in officiating regarding offside.
It seems that you can get away with virtually anything – as long as the team is confident and works in unison. Saracens are masters of the blitz defence and you have to admire the way they seem to get away with the ploy time after time.
Rarely does the referee blow up, the two assistants with the flags seem not to help and we shall never know what the television match official is doing.
This not a parochial Gloucester view, rather it is the worry of a supporter of the game.
You tend to see what you want to see when you watch your own side, but in almost all televised games that you watch the offside is real and blatant – especially from the ruck and maul.
Austin Healey, a very astute and interesting commentator, believes that kicked penalty points ought to be devalued, presumably to two or even one.
He suggests that this would be a major move to get more ball in hand attack.
Here we differ. Austin is far more knowledgeable and experienced than I, but he can occasionally shoot from the hip before he quite knows what the target is.
The penalty kick might just come into this category.
We know from bitter experience that what looks like a simple solution to a problem can actually create more by way of side effects that were not obvious when the solution was found.
This appears in all sorts of areas, not least in medicine.
Scientists can develop drugs willy-nilly to eradicate a complaint, but the very drug they introduce can be responsible for a more varied set of complaints, diseases and illnesses. The penalty kick's three points is a bit like that. Decrease the value of the kick and the blitz defence will get more offside quicker, knowing that giving up two points is far better than the possibility of the attack getting five.
My slightly tongue in cheek solution has always been to increase the penalty to 10 points, then see how many blitzers rush before it is legal to do so!
The real answer to better back play is for the match officials to start reffing the existing laws.
This is the only way to give the attack a fair chance, yet the answer will always be to put a human tank in midfield and blast a route through the defenders.
So the defenders introduce their own tank to stop yours – and we are all back to square one with inventive three-quarters languishing while the offside defenders make hay even when the sun does not shine.
The 10-point penalty will never come, but a strict control of the offside defence would have a real and beneficial effect on back play.
If the offenders persist in going offside, there is the yellow card option and that would free the game up even more.
This places more responsibility on the officials, but it is so elementary that it should have been happening at all levels of the game.
We seem to have stopped looking for the old-fashioned offences while the poor old man with the whistle feels that he has to be aware of the really complicated stuff. Please, rugby, keep the simple things simple!
