Last season we shipped a grand total of 127 points to the Tigers, who triumphed 44-15 at Kingston Park, and we are without a win there since 1997.  Whilst we struggle to show any sense of forward drive or cohesion, Leicester can draw on almost a full pack of internationals, with England World Cup winners Graham Rowntree, Julian White, Martin Corry, Lewis Moody and Ben Kay still going strong and being joined by Ireland lock Leo Cullen.  Even allowing for the retirement of Martin Johnson and Neil Back, Louis Deacon and Will Skinner have shown immense potential.

The Tigers boast a galaxy of other stars too, England international backs including Austin Healey, Harry Ellis, in-form Leon Lloyd, last season’s top kicker Andy Goode and Ollie Smith, and lets not forget the Samoan Tuilagis, Irish full-back Geordan Murphy, Fijian centre Seru Rabeni who destroyed our defence last season, Kiwi Darryl Gibson and for good measure Wales prop Darren Morris.

As one would expect from such a squad, Leicester topped the Premiership last season before losing to Wasps in the Final, and have started 2005/06 strongly too with three wins out of four league matches, their only set-back a 29-29 draw at Wasps.  Their last outing in was at Headingley when they defeated Leeds 28-20 in September, with tries from Lloyd, Louis Deacon and Matt Cornwell.

Since then the Tigers have, like us, won one and lost one in the Powergen Cup.  A 24-15 defeat to Newport at Rodney Parade was followed up on Saturday with a  five-try 42-16 rout of Worcester at Welford Road, courtesy of scores from Ellis, Lloyd, Healey, Tom Varndell and George Chuter, with Goode and Ian Humphreys’ boots kicking the extra points.

Our main hope on Friday rests on repeating the performance at Northampton in September, our only league win of the season – keeping up the sound defence we have seen this season whilst hoping Jonny Wilkinson or David Walder can produce a good tactical game to keep pushing Leicester back into their half.  But most of all, we must go south with the belief that we can win and give it our all.  Pretty much everything I’ve said there was lacking in February.

Tigers team:-

15 Geordan Murphy
14 Tom Varndell
13 Ollie Smith
12 Dan Hipkiss
11 Leon Lloyd
10 Andy Goode
9 Harry Ellis
1 Graham Rowntree
2 George Chuter
3 Julian White
4 Louis Deacon
5 James Hamilton
6 Will Johnson
7 Shane Jennings
8 Martin Corry (captain)

Replacements:

Ephraim Taukafa
Darren Morris
Leo Cullen
Will Skinner or Luke Abraham
Austin Healey
Sam Vesty
Alesana Tuilagi

Falcons team:-

15 Matthew Burke
14 Tom May
13 Mathew Tait
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 Anthony Elliott
10 Jonny Wilkinson
9 Hall Charlton

1 Micky Ward
2 Andy Long
3 Robbie Morris
4 Andy Perry
5 Geoff Parling
6 Owen Finegan
7 Cory Harris
8 Colin Charvis (captain)

Replacements (from):

Grant Anderson
Matt Thompson
Tino Paoletti
Mike McCarthy
Luke Gross
James Grindal
Jamie Noon
Dave Walder

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