Laurie Fisher watches his side warm up © Getty Images

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Laurie Fisher, the Gloucester Rugby head coach and former Brumbies forwards coach is always insightful and easy to talk to. A former school teacher, he has the knack of knowing how to explain the complex in simple terms. This has transferred perfectly into coaching rugby, and through that, explaining the intricacies of the game for the benefit of fans in both hemispheres.

With his side amid preparations to take on Edinburgh in the European Challenge Cup final at The Stoop in London on Friday night, ESPN spoke to him again this week to find out if he's experienced any massive differences having crossed the north-south divide.

ESPN: You've got a pretty big weekend ahead of you

Laurie Fisher: Yeah, we have. It's nice to qualify and be playing in a final, and the second tier of Europe. It's a good achievement for us in what has been a learning year and an up-and-down year. That's the ultimate aim, to be competing at the back end of competitions, so it's very nice for us.

Where will you beat Edinburgh in the final?

Laurie Fisher: I think it's not worrying too much about them. I think once you get to finals games, it's really all about yourselves, and I think we've just got to - and we have done already - make sure our attitude is right, that we've got a simple game plan that relies on what do and what we do well, rather than what they might or might not do. It's just focusing on ourselves, mate, making sure our set piece, our ball-carrying, our communication, our defence - all the basics of our game - are right. And I think if that all goes well, then hopefully it'll be enough.

Jonny May starred for the Cherry and Whites in the European Rugby Challenge Cup semi-final victory © Getty Images

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Did you expect to be vying for silverware in your first season with Gloucester?

Laurie Fisher: We certainly would have hoped to go well in the Challenge Cup. That's at our level at the moment, and we were hoping to go well in that competition, and then obviously our aim was to be top six in the Premiership [to qualify for the European Rugby Champions Cup]. We won't get to the top six in the Premiership, but we've certainly played some good rugby in the Challenge Cup.

When you left Australia you were considered among the best, or the best forwards coach in the country. What have you learned about forwards play from your first season in the north?

Laurie Fisher: It varies, but certainly the need to be able to scrummage on your own and on opposition ball, and to maul and to defend mauls, I think, is still the basis of the game up here. You still find that if everything else falls apart - and I look at a side like Bath, who have tremendous attacking structures and attacking players; some days it just doesn't work. But they can go back to set piece and still win games of rugby. I think that's the key here. Everybody aspires to play something beyond set-piece rugby, but it always comes back to that.

I'm not sure how much Super Rugby you've seen of late, but there's a lot more mauling going on Down Under than last year.

Laurie Fisher: It happens every year, doesn't it. The players get stronger, fitter, faster, there's less space on the field and it's harder to go through people who are more adept at pressuring opposition ball; the attacking game is not easy. You've got to be varied, and that's the key. You've got to threaten sides through the middle so that they have to defend your scrum and they have to defend you maul, and then that will provide space elsewhere.

When we spoke last year, after you'd announced you were heading to Gloucester, you said you were really excited about getting into rebuilding a team. How's that been for you, nearly a full season in?

Laurie Fisher: Yeah, look, it's certainly been a challenge because you inherit a squad of players. We've got some fantastic players, but we've got some other players that we need to grow the depths in the squad in certain positions. And it was also a challenge missing the entire pre-season, so I was over here and straight into the guts of it. We've sort of tinkered and developed as the season's gone on, and again, I think we've got a fantastic attitude in the squad. I think we're starting to get more comfortable in the game we want to play: we're undefeated in nine or 10 games at home in 2015. So I think we've made some pretty good inroads.

Gloucester and Dan Thomas had targeted a top-six finish in the Aviva Premiership © Getty Images

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You've reached the Challenge Cup final and you're ninth in the Aviva Premiership: do you mark the season as a pass or a fail from here?

Laurie Fisher: It's difficult to say, because we would've been targeting top six in the Premiership as our No.1 priority this season, so I guess in terms of our main priority, we won't have achieved that. But again, we've had other good parts of the season. We're eight from eight in the Challenge Cup; we won three out of four in the LV= (the Anglo-Welsh knockout cup between the Premiership clubs and the four Welsh regions) and lost the other game in the last minute.

We've had good performances across a number of competitions, but realistically, in the Premiership, if we'd have won maybe two more games - we probably had the chance to win four or five other games, and if we'd won two of those - then you really are knocking on the door of the top six. So they're the fine margins in all competitions.

You've got upwards of half-a-dozen Internationals in your side now: is it a matter of bringing in more players in order to start hitting the top half of the Premiership ladder?

Laurie Fisher: It's a bit of both, probably. I think we need top-end players, there's no doubt; I think we've got to get more out of our middle-level players, and I think in the long run, obviously, we've got to develop more out of our Academy system, too. We're not going to be a side that will just fill in at the top end, fill in at the top end again; we've got to be developing our own players as well.

So initially, we'll be on the lookout for some top-end talent to fill a number of positions. You've also got EQP* qualifications, and salary caps, and all those sorts of things. (*Premiership clubs receive significant bonuses for averaging 15 England Qualified Players in their matchday 23 over the course of the season.) It's a mixture of strategies that David Humphreys, as the Director of Rugby, is working hard on to make sure that we're progressing in all those areas to balance out the squad over the next two or three years.

You said when we spoke last year that you weren't really sure how you would go walking into an existing coaching staff set-up; how has it been working with David Humphreys?

Laurie Fisher: I guess in all rugby environments, everybody is there basically for the same reasons and are fairly like-minded, so it's been really good. I've found the all the staff and players really friendly, and we've had John Muggleton from Australia here [as defence coach], which has been handy as well. We've all got on reasonably well.

Again, trying to get rugby philosophies exactly aligned is not always easy and does take time, because we don't always think exactly the same. And that's probably an area we're teasing around still, to make sure that we're absolutely sending the consistent message to the players about aspects of the game.

Matt Kvesic: his challenge, Laurie Fisher says, "will be to stick over the ball a bit harder" © Getty Images

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Tell us a little bit about your young flanker, Matt Kvesic: he's 6' 2" (188cm) and 16st 5lb (104kg), as a flanker

Laurie Fisher: Yeah, he's a good size! He's fine young player, a good strong lad and he's got a really good aptitude for the game and a good skill set.

Again, he's one of those No.7s who has a really good carry game; his big challenge is to just be harder on the ball. You look a bloke like David Pocock who's just hard to shift once he gets on the ball. Matt's got a whole range of skills - he's a good defender, he's as fit as you can be - but sometimes you just got to stick over the ball, and his challenge moving forward will be to stick over the ball a bit harder.

Somewhere between Pocock and Michael Hooper, then, in terms of styles.

Laurie Fisher: That's right. They're very different players, but you're right, he's somewhere in the middle because he's built in that solid frame like 'Poey', but he's certainly got a good varied skill set.

But first things first, it's about physicality and the work around breakdown is his bread and butter; and, mate, he's good there. He's got great aptitude to be involved there, but as I say, as a young guy - and we've got to work on some systems to support him as well - he puts his head over the ball, but he's just got to be better at it.

Gloucester coach Laurie Fisher directs training ahead of the European Rugby Challenge Cup final © Getty Images

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Just to finish up, I was really pleased to see a photo this week of you getting around in a bucket hat again; Brumbies fans will be wanting to know how the state of its' fade is coming along?

Laurie Fisher: (laughs) Yeah, it's looking good. They presented that to me on day one and it was a nice introduction to the team to have that presented to me, and I've felt very comfortable here from the moment I arrived. They've certainly been very welcoming and as I say, they're a good bunch, with good facilities; really good people.

They're wonderful supporters - Kingsholm is near enough to a sell-out most times we play there, with unbelievable atmosphere; it's the only game in town. It really is a great rugby environment here.