Kingsholm will be buzzing tomorrow, and not for the first time this season. The festive mood embraces Gloucester, leaders of the Guinness Premiership and eager to keep their neighbours from Bristol in their place, but also because of the obvious improvements that have been made in tandem over 2007 and that now threaten the hegemony of Leicester and London Wasps.

As a young team have grown another year older and wiser, the old playing arena has received a fresh look. “We bucked the trend for gates during the World Cup period and I don’t think we have had a gate below what we had last season,” Dean Ryan, the head coach, said yesterday. “If it’s not sold out every week, it’s certainly moving that way.”

It helps, of course, that the West Country’s three Premiership clubs are all distinguishing themselves: Bath are breathing down Gloucester necks in second place and Bristol’s European campaign has given them a substantial lift in confidence. If Leicester, the champions, and Wasps, the European champions, have set the measure for others to follow, the visits of Bristol and Bath are back on a par.

Gloucester benefited by having relatively few players away at the World Cup, a tournament that Ryan believes cast little or no shadow over the Premiership in playing or technical terms. There was, he says, a lack of ambition at the global tournament in France that is the direct opposite of the rugby that Gloucester have tried to play. “We were able to remove ourselves from what was going on and concentrate on our own principles,” Ryan said.

“It’s easier to reintegrate players coming from another environment, another style of play that hasn’t been massively successful. Players are more receptive to ideas rather than returning with their heads full, even subconsciously, of what had worked for them elsewhere. I think our success so far has been the maturing of the established players and the enhancement by individuals coming in.”

Ryan has in mind the growing influence of such individuals as Ryan Lamb and Anthony Allen, augmented by the likes of Alasdair Strokosch and Akapusi Qera. Strokosch, the 24-year-old flanker from Edinburgh, has arguably been the most consistent Gloucester player, while Qera, the Fiji flanker who joined from Pertemps Bees, has had all the impact he showed for his country in the World Cup, which helped to take Fiji to a hard-fought quarter-final with South Africa, the eventual winners.

He was one of a clutch of players forced to rest after the Heineken Cup game in Bourgoin last month but Qera has recovered from a wrist injury and is in the mix for selection this weekend, as is Chris Paterson, the Scotland utility back, who has trained this week after suffering bruised ribs against Bourgoin.

Gloucester, Bath and Saracens lead the way in the Premiership table with Sale Sharks, Leicester and Harlequins in the chasing group but Ryan, to his glee, has a definite measure of how much his players have improved this calendar year - Gloucester are the only one of 24 clubs to remain unbeaten in Europe. “We’re not the same side as we were 12 months ago,” he said. “People grow, relationships change, that’s rugby and you’re constantly looking for change.

“If you become static in your thought processes, players pick up on it very quickly. There’s no one specific area which has helped us to the top, it’s the all-round progress, and the most pleasing thing is to see the same group of people get that much better.

“You have to see yourself up there in the top four, contesting for honours, every single year. Trophies come off the back of that. You can get lucky and win the league and not be seen again, which doesn’t constitute success in my book. That’s what happened when I was playing at Newcastle [ten years ago]. For one reason or another the opportunity wasn’t taken to build on that, though it was important for me, Steve Bates and Rob Andrew that we knew what it took to win a championship.

“The environment has changed now, you can’t buy all the pieces and put them together tomorrow. You have to grow them, improve them. We have a firm focus on where we want to be and we’re heading in the right direction."