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But we’re not going to talk about them, rather than discuss the actual action on the pitch.  Both ourselves and Leicester are missing several players on international duty, with England, Wales and Ireland all in action at the weekend.  Leicester’s Martin Corry and Matt Cornwell captain England and England U21s respectively, whilst Tom Croft and our David Wilson will turn out for the latter in Falkirk.

 

The full England squad contains Jamie Noon and give more Tigers – Harry Ellis, Julian White, Lewis Moody, George Chuter and Andy Goode.  Other countries have also taken players out of the match, with Colin Charvis and Geordan Murphy turning out for Wales and Ireland in Dublin on Sunday.

 

Leicester however will have numerous other internationals on show on Friday, with Ollie Smith, Leon Lloyd, Austin Healey, Louis Deacon and World Cup winners Graham Rowntree and Ben Kay leading the pack.

 

There has been much activity at Welford Road in a contract sense recently, with management team Pat Howard and Richard Cockerill committing themselves to Leicester until the summer of 2007, Italian prop Martin Castrogiovanni signing from Calvisano and Kiwi back row Brent Wilson arriving on trial.

 

Leicester are currently fourth in the Premiership, two points behind Gloucester and three above London Irish, and visit us in mixed form, having won 28-22 against Worcester last weekend with tries from Cornwell, Smith and Alesana Tuilagi, but before that lost 34-16 at Kingsholm and drew 27-27 v Sale at the end of January.  In the Premiership, the Tigers have lost four of seven away games (against Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester and Sale), beating only Leeds and London Irish and drawing at Wasps.  They also lost at Newport in the Powergen Cup but defeated the Ospreys and Clermont Auvergne in the Heineken Cup on foreign soil.

 

Leicester’s 5 wins out of 6 in the latter competition (the only defeat being a narrow 12-6 loss at Stade Francais) has granted them a quarter-final at the Walkers Stadium against Bath, whilst they meet Wasps in the Powergen Cup semis in Cardiff a week on Saturday.

 

Despite our last win over England’s most successful club of the professional era being a tense and momentous 24-22 triumph in March 2003, along with Sale we are the only team to have come away from Welford Road with anything other than a defeat so far in 2005/06.

 

In October of course we played out an infamous, controversial and at times violent 16-16 draw in the Midlands, with Andy Perry and Julian White being sent off and several bad tackles being made, particularly in the first half.  Robbie Morris scored our try, and we may have stolen a victory were it not for touch judges ruling incorrectly that an Andy Goode conversion had gone through the posts, rather than wide.

 

This fixture last season ended in a 15-44 defeat for the Falcons (nothing compared to what would happen in February!), with the following teams:-

 

Newcastle: D Walder (M Tait, 66, 1T), T May, J Noon, E Taione, M Stephenson 1T, J Wilkinson 1C 1P, H Charlton (J Grindal, 57), I Peel (M Ward, 40), A Long, M Hurter (J Isaacson, 76), L Gross, M McCarthy (S Grimes, 57), C Charvis (YC), E Williamson, S Sititi (G Parling, 80).

 

Leicester: S Vesty, G Murphy 1T 2C 1P, O Smith, S Rabeni 1T (A Tuilagi, 79), J Holtby, R Broadfoot 2C 1P (M Cornwell, 40), H Ellis, G Rowntree (D Morris, 65), G Chuter, J White, M Johnson (B Kay, 57), L Deacon, B Deacon, N Back 1T, M Corry 1T (YC).

 

This Friday I feel a good start is vital, we need our forwards firing and strong in the face of what will be a brutal and aggressive Leicester pack, and we need the strong defence from the backs that sees us boast the second best defence in the Premiership.  Above all, we need to make our opportunities count, and that means Matthew Burke will have to have a better game with the boot than he did on Sunday.

 

As Mark told us in the summer, our record on a Friday night in the professional era is woeful, with us having won only twice on the last working day in competitive matches, and the last of them was three years ago:-

 

5/11/99         Leicester (H)            D12-12

14/1/00         Narbonne (H)           W19-11

5/10/01         Leinster (A)             L9-28

11/1/02         Newport (A)             L17-53

3/1/03          Sale (A)                  L3-38

7/2/03          Leeds (A)                W17-12

26/9/03         Leicester (A)            L21-28

23/4/04         Sale (A)                  L16-41

5/11/04         Sale (A)                  L25-39

28/1/05         Saracens (A)           L13-32

15/4/05         Northampton (A)       L22-23

2/9/05          Sale (A)                  L25-26

14/10/05       Leicester (A)            D16-16

11/11/05       London Irish (H)        L20-23

 

The record also shows that we have only won 6 of 15 matches at home against Leicester, whilst we have also won twice at Welford Road (1977 and 1997):-

 

15/4/74   North Road              Club Match                        W28-18

19/4/76   North Road              Club Match                        W27-9

20/4/85   North Road              Club Match                        W20-6

15/4/89   North Road              Club Match                        L14-47

22/2/92   Kingston Park           Pilkington Cup Quarter Final  L0-10

9/10/93   Kingston Park           Courage League Division 1    L13-22

22/2/97   Kingston Park           Pilkington Cup Quarter Final  L8-18

4/5/98    Gateshead               Allied Dunbar Premiership 1   W27-10

2/5/99    Kingston Park           Allied Dunbar Premiership 1   L12-21

5/11/99   Kingston Park           Allied Dunbar Premiership 1   D12-12

27/8/00   Kingston Park           Zurich Premiership              L22-25

2/9/01    Kingston Park           Zurich Premiership              W19-16

16/3/03   Kingston Park           Zurich Premiership              W24-22

4/4/04    Kingston Park           Zurich Premiership              D25-25

2/10/04   Kingston Park           Zurich Premiership              L15-44

 

Another statistic that is a bit more positive shows that our last defeat on February 24^th was way back in 1955, and that we have an average record on the date since World War 1:-

 

1932   Tynedale (A)            L8-25

1949   Gateshead Fell (H)     L3-8

1955   West Hartlepool (A)   L6-19

1966   Percy Park (H)          D6-6

1977   Middlesbrough (H)     W11-0

1983   Middlesbrough (H)     W37-6

1986   Middlesbrough (A)     W12-3

1994   Middlesbrough (A)     W39-11

 

The Leicester team:-

 

15 Sam Vesty
14 A Tuilagi
13 Ollie Smith
12 Dan Hipkiss
11 Leon Lloyd
10 Ian Humphreys
9 Austin Healey (capt)
1 Graham Rowntree
2 James Buckland
3 Darren Morris,
4 Louis Deacon
5 Ben Kay
6 Luke Abraham
7 Will Johnson
8 Shane Jennings

 

Falcons’ team shows eight changes, and is led by the very recently re-signed Matt Burke – the club have announced this morning that God has signed for another two years, and is a wonderful boost in advance of the game, both for the club and the supporters, who petitioned through this site to try and “help” his decision.  The full side is:-

15 Matthew Burke (captain)
14 Tom May
13 Mathew Tait
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 Anthony Elliott
10 Toby Flood
9 James Grindal

1 Micky Ward
2 Andy Long
3 Robbie Morris
4 Andy Perry
5 Geoff Parling
6 Owen Finegan
7 Ben Woods
8 Andy Buist

Replacements:-

Jonny Williams
Matt Thompson
Stuart Grimes
Mike McCarthy
Hall Charlton
Dave Walder
Ollie Phillips

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