Leicester Tigers have no chance in today’s playoff game against Gloucester. Three teams have serious prospects of lifting the Guinness Premiership title in the most open and exciting finale to the playoffs to date, but the Tigers are the odd ones out. Who am I to give the reigning champions a hope in hell if Richard Cockerill – the forwards coach of the club – has dismissed any prospects of being competitive in these playoffs, let alone retaining the title?

Nowhere near good enough was his assessment of the Tigers, better to completely miss out; but that was before last week, when Sale blew it against a London Irish team that played with great integrity as Leicester surged late to score a bonus-point victory and slip past Sale and Harlequins. Leicester were just four minutes from missing the playoffs, but four minutes is plenty long enough to disturb the order of the sporting universe, especially with the pace of Tom Varndell waiting on the wings. Now, the Tigers have been given a second life, and Gloucester will worry that this big cat needs no more than two – or will they?

Before any assessment of the technical strengths and weaknesses of the two teams involved, the psychological side of the encounter has to be considered. In the past few years Gloucester have been a match for the Tigers on paper but have been comfortably beaten and bullied in the intangible mind games that go on off the field. That has changed in the space of a few weeks and gives Gloucester an invisible edge as potent as the earthy devotion of the fans who will urge their heroes towards Twickenham.

Cockerill’s verbal gaffe (unless he is playing psychological mind games of the highest order) cannot have done a great deal to boost the normally flinty mentality of the Tigers. Even in victory against Harlequins, there were worries, with some nondescript defending demonstrated from start to finish. The self-belief was as brittle as the intensity of their play without the ball.

Any repeat this afternoon will have Cockerill cast as a 21st century Cassandra. Whereas Leicester Tigers hint at a rare lack of conviction in themselves and their defence, Gloucester seem to have scaled a height that has previously been beyond them. In the sternest tests they have not lacked mental and physical power.

The nature of their away wins at Wasps and the raw determination of their scramble defence against Bath indicates that mentally and physically the home side start with an advantage in a domain where Leicester have traditionally held sway. If the sheer physical battering of last week has not taken too much of a toll, this intangible will make Gloucester very strong favourites to make another final appearance.

So much for the unseen side of the game, but what about the more obvious clashes and collisions? Looking for Leicester areas of obvious superiority is unusually difficult. Quite frankly, the Gloucester front row should be more than capable of handling the scrum, with Nick Wood, increasingly impressive, only held back from international calls by yet another case of summer surgery. Julian White not only gives the impression of being a fading force in the scrum, he lacks rapidity in the furious battle for ball in the loose. Throughout the front five, Gloucester possess the sharper competitors at the breakdown. The splendid and spectacular return to form of the Gloucester lock pairing of Marco Bortolami and Alex Brown should ensure that the lineout will not be the private fiefdom of Ben Kay. In the back row, Gloucester, spearheaded by the frightening Fijian dump truck Akapusi Qera, have dynamite aplenty to control contact against a Tigers unit that is heavily reliant on the foraging skills of Ben Herring in the loose.

If any one man can turn the odds on their head, that man is likely to be Andy Goode. He has the range to gather chunks of territory, but today it is precision more than distance that matters. Iain Balshaw was a mixture of the brave and the brilliant last weekend, but Bath failed to drop one high ball upon his head. It is the weakness that blights his career and if Goode can reopen his old wound, the Tigers have a soft option going into the match.

As Argentina’s World Cup was essentially a matter of up and under and broken-field counter-attack, it will be something of a shock if Marcelo Loffreda does not plan a bombardment from kick-off with any loose ball snaffled by Varndell.

Goode will also try to bring Alesana Tuilagi back to life with a cross-field variety of kicks aimed to utilise the Samoan’s size advantage over James Simpson-Daniel. If he gets this kicking game wrong, Leicester could easily be savaged by Gloucester on the counter but this limited tactic seems likely to be the best plan for Leicester.

Varndell’s pace poses a threat to the home side but his tendency to commit less than everything to the tackle is a potential weakness which Lesley Vainikolo has the size and subtlety to punish. Ryan Lamb has no shortage of rugby brain or attitude. He has both the temerity and the inclination to cock a snook at his exclusion from the New Zealand tour party. Lamb, like Danny Cipriani, revels in the unorthodox, but that does not mean he lacks the basics. His play is laying the foundations, his local roots the inspiration, for Gloucester to avenge last year's humiliating final defeat.

Lamb and Gloucester have grown up.