London Irish's head coach, Toby Booth, has challenged his players to take the next step in their "evolution" by beating Harlequins on Saturday to reach the Guinness Premiership final at Twickenham on 16 May.
"For us to reach the Premiership final would be a great achievement because it's something we haven't done before," he said. "The evolution and psyche of this team is about trying to achieve things we have never managed before.
"We've achieved things successively during my time here – a Challenge Cup final, the Premiership play-offs, Heineken Cup qualification back to back, then reaching the knockout stages and then the semi-final. Making an impact in the Premiership play-offs is the next challenge."
Booth, in his first season as head coach, added that the squad were "probably better prepared than we have been for any big games in the past. The next step is to reach the final. It's another stage in the upward development of this squad. I'm confident we'll give a good account of ourselves and if we do that we'll be there or thereabouts".
Irish finished third in the Premiership table, one place behind Quins, and Booth still considered his side the underdogs for the semi-final. "Quins finished second and we finished third so that alone means we could be considered underdogs," he said. "We've played three games against each other and we've won those 2–1 so that's going to contradict that argument but we're away from home.
"Their two games against Stade Français [they won home and away in the Heineken Cup] will have given them massive self-belief in what they can achieve. They've probably played in more significant competitions than us this year and that big-game experience means they will be more used to the occasion."
Irish's centre Shane Geraghty and the hooker David Paice are definitely missing through injury but the prop Faan Rautenbach has an outside chance of playing, and the former England outside-half Mike Catt is also expected to be available.
"Catt is wrapped up in cotton wool and embalming fluid. He's been training and getting better," said Booth. "We know what we've got with Catt and we have to manage him accordingly. He's very experienced and a big-game player. Unless something goes drastically wrong he'll be available for selection and that's really encouraging."
