Newcastle v Leicester, 22/04/2011

So on Sunday afternoon I went down to Lemington to see my best mate's new house, quite a trek but an excuse to get some exercise. We had a walk up to our new local now he's moved not only past Ma Leipy's house but onto the other side of the A69.

Anyway, so we got to talking about the Falcons' situation and I explained all about the Northampton game, and then started on tomorrow's. Billy is a Newcastle United fan so I have to talk his language “It's like, well, who tends to scrape staying up every year? It's like ten years ago Southampton playing Manchester United.”

He said “Well, you have to beat the Southamptons.” No, I meant the Falcons were like Southampton, not least since we've had a period of decent results at home against Leicester. We even have our own Matthew Le Tissier, I realised while I was digging up paving stones in Ma Leipy's garden on Monday morning, in Jimmy “The Wizard” Gopperth.

Leicester's own playmakers, Ben Youngs and Toby “Is a Geordie” Flood seem to have been off the boil since the end of the Six Nations from what I read, bar Flood's place-kicking which is a threat to any team. Except us tomorrow as Noah is rested (as is Youngs) but James Grindal starts, Craig Newby is captain and Ben Woods is on the bench.  Even without England's likely World Cup half-backs Leicester will still pose some challenge tomorrow.

The fact is that Leicester could put out two teams, one that would challenge for the title and the other that would easily stay up and probably threaten the Heineken Cup places, so there is no use worrying about how good they will be.

We need the points far more than they do. A win tomorrow night, assuming no try bonus point, would take us four points ahead of Leeds and really put the pressure on the Cardigans for their match with Harlequins on Sunday. A Quins victory would mean we would be able to secure survival at home to Bath next Saturday.

Falcons team:

15 Tom Catterick

14 Alex Tait

13 Rob Vickerman

12 Tane Tu'ipulotu

11 Luke Fielden

10c Jimmy Gopperth

9 Chris Pilgrim

1 Jon Golding

2 Matt Thompson

3 Euan Murray

4 Filipo Levi

5 Andrew van der Heijden

6 Mark Wilson

7 Will Welch

8 Ally Hogg

16 Rob Vickers

17 Grant Shiells

18 Kieran Brookes

19 Tim Swinson

20 Alex Gray

21 Micky Young

22 Luke Eves

23 Gcobani Bobo

Tiggers' team:

15 Scott Hamilton

14 Matt Smith

13 Manu Tuilagi

12 Anthony Allen

11 Alesana Tuilagi

10 Jeremy Staunton

9 James Grindal

1 Marcos Ayerza

2 George Chuter

3 Martin Castrogiovanni

4 Ed Slater

5 George Skivington

6 Tom Croft

7c Craig Newby

8 Thomas Waldrom

16 Rob Hawkins

17 Boris Stankovich

18 Dan Cole

19 Calum Green

20 Ben Woods

21 Sam Harrison

22 Billy Twelvetrees

23 Horacio Agulla