Say what you like about the Guinness Premiership – and I say here and now that the play-off ending is flawed – the computer boffin who came up with this season's opening fixtures deserves a medal.

Every one of this weekend's ties has added value. In London, there's a double header at Twickenham. Newcastle take on Sale in the nearest the north gets to a derby, and in the Midlands it's the battle of the sugar-daddy millionaires from Northampton and Worcester.

Here, in the West Country, the most local of derbies pits Bristol against Bath at the Memorial Stadium, while Gloucester's clash with Leicester at Kingsholm is not only the first of the new campaign's showdowns between title contenders, but it also gives the Cherry and Whites the first and earliest opportunity to wipe out the memories of what was their last and worst performance of last season.

Gloucester won the league but the rules decreed that they had nothing to show for being the best over 22 games if they couldn't win two more. Leicester provided the first hurdle – and Gloucester fell flat on their faces. The history books will show that a last-minute drop goal by Andy Goode took the Tigers to Twickenham but few will dispute that it was a couple of moments of hare-brained naivety that cost Gloucester a match that they could have and should have won.

Fans with only slightly longer memories will point to another Kingsholm nightmare – the Heineken Cup quarter-final defeat by Munster – and won't be too much harder pushed to argue that this was yet another big game that Gloucester gave away.

Add in the previous season's Premiership Final against Leicester at Twickenham and an unwelcome pattern starts to form. Gloucester, it seems, lack big-match temperament. And, as the All Blacks have found in winning 42 out of 46 Test matches, but failing to reach either of the last two World Cup finals, critics are never slow to reach for the label, "choker".

Until the big games are won, until the tight results are "nailed", until the requisite mental resilience is shown, there's nothing that can be done or said to shake off the tag, or prevent the worm of self-doubt from eating away.

And it's doubly difficult for the coaches who, despite relinquishing all but the slightest influence once a match is under way, inevitably come under fire for the mental aberrations of their players. Graham Henry, the most successful coach in All Black history, had to re-apply for his job after last autumn's cataclysmic World Cup quarter-final defeat by France. Dean Ryan is similarly under the microscope at Gloucester.

But how can coaches get players to think for themselves? They can improve skills by repetition, stamina by training and strength by gym-work but they can't, however much they want to, apply the same formula to decision-making.

Dean Ryan will be sorely tempted to try to rectify Gloucester's perceived mental failings by himself. One way to eradicate human weakness is to get a team to play like robots. But programmed predictability also cuts out the sort of instinctive human genius that can turn a match – and has done so often in the past for Gloucester.

The rugby instinct that create tries from nothing can also prevent them happening, provided the collective will is there. Ryan the player would have recognised that quality comes from within a team. Ryan the coach should know that it's one thing he can't pass on. It's more likely to be generated from within. He may need to trust his players more, not less – easier said than done, especially when the knives are out.

The West's other two directors of rugby have different problems. Under Steve Meehan, Bath played some exhilarating rugby to come third in the league and to land their first piece of silverware in a decade by taking the European Challenge Cup. But all this came too late for their captain Steve Borthwick, who had already signed for Saracens, and for their leading points-scorer Olly Barkley, who was on his way to Gloucester.

They leave big holes to fill, while World Cup-winner Butch James is bound to be feeling the effects of non-stop rugby and scrum-half Michael Claassens and wing Matt Banahan – so important to Bath last campaign – could well suffer from second season syndrome.

With Danny Grewcock out injured as well, this weekend could be as good a time as any to face Bath.

Which is probably just as well for Bristol, almost unanimously tipped by the pundits to finish last in the Premiership. Richard Hill has got used to seeing his men labelled as favourites for relegation and the Memorial Stadium faithful have got used to seeing the former Bath scrum-half build bricks without straw.

Neither he nor they will forget what happened three years ago when Bristol began the season by beating Bath at home and went on to avoid the drop by one place. Lightning shouldn't strike twice, but... that's what makes this opening weekend so intriguing.