Leicester Preview

Time for that bittersweet time of year: the last match of the season. Many said that we didn’t want to be going to Welford Road needing a win to stay up and fortunately we don’t, although our results since our Premiership status was secured have been less than satisfactory. Leicester though still have something to play for as they seek to secure second place in the league and its consequent home tie in the Premiership Semi-final Pay-off.

They surely won’t perform at the level of our previous encounter that saw Jason Strange kick five first-half penalties as Bristol celebrated their fifth Premiership win 15 – 3 before a record home league crowd of just under 12,000. Referee Tony Spreadbury was a late withdrawal, having been involved in a car accident on his way to the game, so the appropriately named Dean Richards took charge of his first Premiership match. He did an excellent job too, certainly better than last week’s official!

It was thought at the time that the Leicester coaching team had under-estimated the quality of Bristol ’s side, although in fairness they had recently had a pretty bruising run-in against the Ospreys in the Heineken Cup. Frankly, Bristol should have won even more convincingly against the Tigers and if the team’s finishing had matched Strange's then Leicester would have suffered an embarrassing loss. This surely just reflects the nature of Bristol’s performances throughout the course of the season when we have shown a resolute and skilled defence that has kept us in contention, but somehow lacked the clinical cutting edge that would make a game safe (just look at last weekend).

Apparently, former Bristol skipper Martin Corry is absent from the starting lineup because he would otherwise have started more than the prescribed number of games under the England team regulations. This surely means that he is destined to go on the tour to Australia , which makes no sense in terms of player development. Austin Healey is likely to captain the side at fly-half in what is supposed to be his last league match as a full-time professional.

This time around it is likely to be Bristol thought fielding the under strength side with a number of players having just had or about to have surgery for a variety of injuries. The majority of the back line is retained from last weekend but Brian Lima comes in for Rob Higgitt at outside centre with Higgitt booked in for surgery on Friday. At scrum half, Greg Nicholls comes in for Shaun Perry who was obviously struggling with an injury throughout the Northampton match. The front row of Hilton, Regan and Darren Crompton who started 18 out of 21 league matches as a unit is broken up with Mark Irish and Saul Nelson getting a rare start. Crompton retains his place and captains the side.

Matt Salter finally succumbed to the rigours of being the number one tackler in the country for the season and had shoulder surgery; he is replaced by Geraint Lewis who moves across from the number eight position where Dan Ward-Smith starts. The replacements are: Dave Hilton, Neil Clark, Chris Morgan, Iain Grieve, Jake Rauluni, Danny Gray and Tommy Hayes.

I predicted a win for Bristol last week and was 87.5% correct! I have to say I think the greater motivation for Leicester is likely to sway things their way and so I feel a narrow win for the Tigers is on the cards. The Flying Bumpkin leads our prediction lead, but can be caught in the last game.