APRIL FOOL. The accusation will be bandied about thousands of time on Sunday but Gloucester will be hoping that the joke’s not on them.

Aviva Premiership matches are serious stuff at the best of times. After last weekend’s home defeat by Exeter, the Cherry and Whites’ match against Wasps at Adams Park has taken on a decidedly sober aspect.

Gloucester are still sixth in the table but are seven points adrift of Exeter with only four matches to play. More importantly, they are ten behind Northampton and, as head coach Bryan Redpath conceded after Saturday’s reverse, their hopes of reaching the end of season play-offs have evaporated. Now it’s a question of hanging on to sixth place and a place in next season’s Heineken Cup.

After promising so much, Gloucester are right to rue a clutch of narrow defeats, typified by last weekend’s loss to Exeter. That the Chiefs were only awarded their match-winning try as a result of a new technological experiment should be a matter of regret for Gloucester, but not grievance. As Redpath admitted, Gloucester didn’t really deserve to win despite hauling themselves back into the match and holding the lead as the game went into its final period. A poor first half that gave them too much to do in the later stages was the determining factor and highlighted a worrying lack of consistency at Kingsholm – not just from week to week but from half to half.

Redpath and his coaching staff must be tearing their hair out when they consider how many victories have slipped from the Cherry and Whites’ grasp as a result. Six of their nine defeats in the Premiership have been by a score or less. Throw in a draw at Saracens and it’s easy to mount a case for what might have been. No wonder they are keen to tap into the winning mentality typified by the All Blacks.

Scrum half Jimmy Cowan has half a century of caps for New Zealand and was part of the squad that won the World Cup last autumn. If, as rumoured, he is on his way to Kingsholm, the gain to Gloucester could be exponential.

Life might be frustrating for Gloucester at the moment, but it is hugely more worrying for Sunday’s opponents. Wasps appear to be in freefall. Last weekend’s home thrashing by Northampton was their 13th defeat of the season.

It’s hard to believe that they opened their league account with successive victories over last season’s Premiership finalists, Saracens and Leicester. Also, the home victory over London Irish at the start of the month was their first in the competition since October. Yet they were champs as recently as 2008.

The only saving grace as far as the falling London giants are concerned is the form of the team immediately below them. Newcastle are eight points behind Wasps and, while rugby neutrals might hope that relegation will only be decided when the two play each other in the final match of the season, Wasps know that one more victory could render it all but meaningless. Gloucester have been warned.