This season, Saracens have only lost two “home” games in the premiership, one of which was the Double Header, the other being Gloucester. The only other match in all competitions that we have lost at Vicarage Road was against Llanelli Scarlets, and this one was by the biggest margin, 9 points.

So our home form has been excellent this term, unlike that on the road, where we have only beaten Bristol in the Premiership, and we have turned in some very disappointing performances. However, we have also recorded away victories against Bristol (EDF), Viadana, Stade Montois and Bayonne (ERC).

Leicester Tigers have only lost at home to Wasps in the Premiership, which was back in September. They have won away to Gloucester, Worcester, London Irish and Bristol and they drew away to Harlequins.

Clearly there is a strong home advantage evident for both teams, but Leicester have done a lot better on the road than Saracens. Also, the only time Saracens have won by 30 points was against Falcons, whereas Tigers beat Worcester by 33 and us by 30 (and they also have Bristol still to play as their last home game of the regular season).

Interestingly, I heard that Tigers were targeting this match for a losing bonus point! However, they always passionately want to win, not least against Sarries: but they don’t always get their own way. The first Saracens game ever I watched was v Tigers in 2003 (yes, I am just a newby), and IIRC we drew 19-19 in a thriller of a match. Since then we have had some epic battles, both figuratively and literally. Stand-out memories include Corry being sent off for elbowing Hilly, and both Martin Johnson and our own (original) BRussell Sprout being yellow carded for fighting.

I guess that in the back of Tigers’ minds will be the fact that they are still very much in the Heineken Cup, with a semi final against Cardiff on Mayday weekend (the same weekend we play Stains) and perhaps more to the point, their final position in the Premiership. My best guess is that they will finish top – they are almost guaranteed a top 4 place and involvement in the play-offs – with the advantage of a home semi-final. So even when their regular league season is finished they will hope (or expect) to have four more big, knock-out matches, so how will they approach this one? Will they rest some of their key players? How much stomach will they have for the battle?

Well, just in case you are beginning to think this will be reasonably easy, let me remind you that in their last Premiership match, against Sale, they had Julian White red-carded for punching Sheridan and went on to score 3 tries with only 14 men on the pitch. Tuilagi has since been banned by his club for a dangerous and/or late tackle in their Heineken quarter-final and White banned by the RFU, so neither can take part in this match. Corry, Louis Deacon and Flood are all injured.

Like any club at this end of the season, Saracens have also lost a few good men to injury, notably Kevin Sorrell, Wikus van Heerden, Michael Owen, Kameli Ratuvou and Andy Saul, all of whom would probably have been first choice players for Sunday. On the other hand, we welcomed Neil de Kock back last week, and he will be better still this week after that game time.

Neil may be facing that pantomime villain Harry Ellis, the sort of scrum-half opponents love to hate but I am particularly looking forward to seeing Tom Croft against Chris Jack, Geordan Murphy against Alex Goode, another who will be sharper after his return to the team last week, and Rodd Penney against Scott Hamilton. The battle between the forwards will be colossal but perhaps the key will be Glen Jackson against Sam Vesty. Hopefully, no one will remember referee David Rose after the match, a curious tribute for a well refereed match

I have the feeling that Saracens will win this one, but I could be wrong. It may be in the balance right up to the final whistle, and we will need to drown out the Leicester support.

Saracens: 1.Aguero 2.Ongaro 3.Mercey 4.Vyvyan 5.Chesney 6.Jack 7.Seymour ;o) 8.Melck
9.De Kock 10.Jackson (c) 11.Penney 12.Barritt 13.Leonelli 14.Wyles 15.Goode

16.Cairns 17.Visagie 18.Ryder 19.Barrell 20.Marshall 21.Farrell 22.Cato 

Tigers: 5 Geordan Murphy (c)14 Scott Hamilton 13 Ayoola Erinle12 Dan Hipkiss 11 Johne Murphy 10 Sam Vesty 9 Julien Dupuy
1  Marcos Ayerza 2 George Chuter 3 Martin Castrogiovanni 4 Tom Croft 5 Ben Kay 6 Craig Newby 7 Ben (Ed Bin?) Woods8 Jordan Crane

16 Benjamin Kayser 17 Dan Cole 18 Dan Hemingway 19 Ben Pienaar 20 Harry Ellis 21 Seru Rabeni 22 Tom Varndel

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