George Skivington plans to use Gloucester’s game against Edinburgh Rugby on Friday night as a litmus test for this season’s campaign in the EPCR Challenge Cup and has named a strong side for the first outing to give his side the best possible chance.

The Cherry and Whites director of rugby said he intends to ‘go hard’ with his selection for the opening pool stage game of the competition, having gone all the way to final last season only to lose 36-22 to the Sharks, but admitted the strength of sides he fields in the rest of the competition could depend on the result at Kingsholm with the club fighting to make the top four of the Gallagher Premiership. Last season it was a case of putting the eggs in the European basket for Gloucester, but Skivington said: “We're in a different position this year. Come this fixture last year, the Premiership was finished for us really, all bar trying to find something out of it.

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“We're in a good spot in the Prem and I think the first two games in Europe will decide it for us. We're going to go hard, definitely. We've got a few bangs and bruises, so the 23 will look slightly different to the one that won at Northampton, but I'm picking the best team that I've got available to go and beat Edinburgh on Friday night and then Vannes next week.

“I'd love to be competitive in a couple of competitions. I think it gives you a bit more to fight for. We've also just come off the back of a bit of rest. The boys have only played a couple of games. So we'll be going as hard as we can Friday night and we'll go after it and we'll see where we are in a couple of weeks.”

Edinburgh sit seventh in the 16 team United Rugby Championship table with next weekend’s opponents Vannes both of the French Top 14.

The Cherry and Whites have had a sneak preview of the challenge the Scottish side pose having faced them in the Scottish captain back in September in pre-season, going down 33-26.

Skivington added: “We had a really good ding-dong in pre-season where we scored, they scored in some really exciting rugby. So we know each other relatively well. I like watching Edinburgh play. Obviously, there's a lot of Scottish internationals in there. I think they've got a good balance to their game. Certainly against us, their set-piece is always good and they're a big team.I think we've got to be ready for an exciting game and we've just got to be ready in all areas for them really.”

Gloucester Rugby: 15. Santiago Carreras, 14. Christian Wade, 13. Chris Harris, 12. Max Llewellyn, 11. Josh Hathaway, 10. Gareth Anscombe, 9. Caolan Englefield, 1. Val Rapava Ruskin, 2. Seb Blake, 3. Kirill Gotovtsev, 4. Arthur Clark, 5. Matias Alemanno, 6. Freddie Thomas, 7. Lewis Ludlow, 8. Ruan Ackermann

Replacements: 16. Jack Singleton, 17. Ciaran Knight, 18. Afolabi Fasogbon, 19. Harry Taylor, 20. Albert Tuisue, 21. Charlie Chapman, 22. Will Butler, 23. George Barton

Edinburgh Rugby: 15. Wes Goosen, 14. Ross McCann, 13. Matt Currie, 12. Mosese Tuipulotu, 11. Nathan Sweeney, 10. Ross Thompson, 9. Ben Vellacott (c), 1. Boan Venter, 2. Paddy Harrison, 3. Paul Hill, 4. Marshall Sykes, 5. Sam Skinner, 6. Tom Dodd, 7. Freddy Douglas, 8. Magnus Bradbury

Replacements: 16. Dave Cherry, 17. Mikey Jones, 18. D'arcy Rae, 19. Rob Carmichael, 20. Liam McConnell, 21. Charlie Shiel, 22. Ben Healy, 23. James Lang