HEAD coach Bryan Redpath feels Gloucester are a mentally tougher team than the one which had their 'pants pulled down' by Cardiff at Twickenham last season.

Gloucester lost 50-12 in the Anglo/Welsh Cup final, but beat Cardiff in the semi-final of the same competition last Sunday to set up a clash with Northampton this weekend.

Redpath felt the latest performance against Cardiff, who saw Gloucester beat them for the first time in five, shows exactly how far his side have come since that fateful day at Twickenham last April.

"I just think we're stronger mentally," Redpath said. "We've gone through some tough times.

"We had our pants pulled down last year against Cardiff. That's no disrespect to Cardiff, they firmly spanked us and that grates me because we deserved it.

"We have to learn from that. We've been in three finals now and we haven't won. We've got to change some of that mentality. The first 20 minutes of that second half on Sunday was a good stepping stone for us."

The big game defeats have come thick and fast for Gloucester, who last won silverware in the 2006 European Challenge Cup final against London Irish.

As well as the Anglo/Welsh defeat to Cardiff last season, they lost to Leicester (44-16) in the 2007 Guinness Premiership final, and to Wasps (39-3) in the 2003 final of the same competition, winning the Powergen Cup that year against Northampton.

In that time they have also lost to Munster (16-3) in the 2007 Heineken Cup quarter-final and Leicester (26-25) in the 2007 Guinness Premiership semi-final, both at Kingsholm.

It was those defeats, plus the opening day loss to Leicester in the 2007/2008 season which threw Gloucester off track and ultimately cost Dean Ryan his job.