Hi There ,
As a rule of thumb I tend to allow the reccomended air gap + 10 percent this allows for slight movement of the rockwool after installation. I would also site the transformer in free space if it is of the toroidial kind, they run warm anyway and dont like thermal insulation, or better still use an electronic transformer. These prolong lamp life as they "soft start" the lamp and can be dimmed with a normal dimmer should you want that.
Best of luck
Jim