European competition may now prove to be a welcome distraction from their domestic problems and Gilmore believes a win might prove to be a turning point.
“It’s a competition that we want to have a good crack at,” he added.
“It’s important that we have a good start. We’re at home, want to put on a good performance in front of our supporters and get ourselves into the competition.
“We want to be off to a good start in the Challenge Cup and want to be bouncing back in the Prem pretty quickly.
“They look like a classic French team; really big forward pack, love their ball, big at scrum – quite awkward at scrum – and love to play it unstructured.
“So we know that up front we’re going to have to bring our physicality again, which I was happy with at the weekend, and have got to make sure we’re on our toes with any ground-ball or counter-attack opportunities.
“That’s what we felt we really lacked against Gloucester. I felt against Sale, particularly in the first 30 minutes, that we generated good try-scoring opportunities because we carried hard through the middle.”
