Tigers Limp into Orange Cup

By Denise
August 23 2002

Tomorrow Tigers take on Biarritz, the French Champions in the Orange Cup. A competition in its second year which involves the English League champions taking on the top French team in a preseason clash.

The game has attracted more attention than your average preseason game especially in France, and will in fact be shown live on Sky Sports 3 (at 2pm). Biarritz is located in the rugby hotbed of South West France. The team name is actually Biarritz Olympique and they are often referred to as BO. Biarritz have historically been a successful club with some great players, such as Serge Blanco and more recently Philippe Bernat-Salles and Serge Betsen. This year in the European Cup they share a pool with Cardiff, Northampton and Ulster.

Tigers go to Bayonne with a huge injury list consisting mainly of backs. On the injured list are Ollie Smith (tweaked hamstring), Geordan Murphy (recovering from shoulder operation), Leon Lloyd (neck), Rod Kafer (groin), and Glenn Gelderbloom (torn calf). The back line therefore is likely to give us the first chance to see some of the younger members of the squad breaking into the first XV, although Tim Stimpson, Austin Healey and Jamie Hamilton are expected to appear.

I don't hold out much hope of Tigers going against tradition and winning a preseason game but it will be good to see some of the new boys in action. It seems the locals who support Bayonne will be honorary Tiger fans for the day so they will have some support.

The game is being shown on Sky Sports 3 at 2pm, you can catch it either at the Walkabout Inn, Leicester - Humberstone Gate where there will be special offers available for Tigers shirt wearers or you can see it at the ABC bar at Welford Road which opens at 1pm.