Skipper Byron Elliott, full-back Ed Squires and centre Mark Sanderson had all proved their fitness earlier with flanker Rikki Wylie doing so last night.

"We'll be at full-strength on Saturday which you always hope will be the case in any final," said coach Alan Howarth, who gave the Doncaster club good service as a player for many years.

"Even so we'll be going into the final as underdogs because Hartpury are a very good side.

"Premiership giants Gloucester set up an Academy at the College and they provide coaching and back-up.

"They operate both as a college side - they recently beat Loughborough University 23-15 to win the British Universities Sports Association Champion-ship at Twickenham - and as a club side.

"They have a strong Glouc-ester-style pack and some very good backs and you can see why they have done so well in both league and cup games.

"We'll be looking to get in among them and try to stop them playing.

"We spoke to several players from Cullompton after we had beat them in the semi-final and they remarked on our physicality and said that they had never been hit as hard or as often and we've got to make sure we do that on Saturday.

"But apart from that we'll be looking to play our normal game when we have the ball.

"Whatever the score we'll play for the full 80 minutes because the lads never let their heads go down.

"We showed that when we came back from 18-0 down to beat Spalding 19-18 in the quarter-finals."

A Wheatley injury-hit side were beaten by Sheffield in the second round only to be reinstated after it was shown that their South Yorkshire opponents had inadvertently fielded an ineligible player.

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