Gloucester boss Skivington: We won't underestimate Saints

Saints have lost on each of their past three visits to Kingsholm, but they come up against a Cherry and Whites side who currently sit bottom of the Gallagher Premiership.

Gloucester have taken just six points from six games so far, winning once, while Saints are eighth in the standings, having beaten Worcester in their most recent outing back on Boxing Day.

And ahead of this weekend's showdown, Skivington said: "Every game in the Premiership is a hard game so it doesn’t really matter where someone’s sitting in the table, it’s a tough game no matter what.

"From that point of view, we prepare for every team the same, do as much homework as we can and get our game on point and then try and turn up on the Saturday.

"Saints haven’t had a game in a little while but they’re a good team. They’ve got some really good players and they play good attacking and expansive rugby.

"They got a couple of tries through their set piece against Worcester as well.

"Just like everyone else in the Premiership, they’re a serious threat.

"There’s no underestimating them from our point of view."

While Saints haven't played for almost five weeks due to Covid-19 causing problems with their schedule, Gloucester have also had a break, albeit a shorter one.

Their most recent match was a 22-10 defeat at Newcastle Falcons on January 9.

And when asked how Gloucester have used their three weeks without a game, Skivington said: "We took the opportunity to give the boys a break.

"We’re one of the few teams who haven’t had a break this season so it was a good opportunity to rest a few bodies and then address a few things that we feel we need to keep pushing really hard.

"It was a good opportunity to have conversations when there isn’t the pressure of a game at the weekend and allowing everyone to express themselves and some younger players to really dip in and try to understand what we’re trying to achieve and how we’ll get there.

"We’ve used the time as well as we can and we’re looking forward to the Saints game at the weekend."

Both clubs will lose players to Six Nations duty in the coming weeks.

But Skivington said: "We lose quite a few boys to the Six Nations but we knew that was coming and it’s a unique season for that in that the internationals aren’t going to be around for a lot of the season.

"We’ve always known that was coming and we’ve had a lot of opportunities to play a lot of young guys up until now, some through choice and some through circumstance.

"We’ve ended up using our squad as much as anybody through this period for numerous reasons.

"We knew who we’d lose, and we’ve planned accordingly."