By Leipziger
January 4 2007

Leicester are the first visitors to Kingston Park in 2007 this Sunday, in a match which is always exciting, usually controversial, and generally memorable. The Tigers, along with Bristol, have pulled away slightly from the chasing pack at the top of the Premiership table and will be looking to win in Newcastle for the fifth time in the league.

Last season’s corresponding game was moved to a Friday night, on February 24th, and the sell-out 10,200 crowd went a long way to persuading the Newcastle management to make the change permanent this year. The Falcons put in one of their top performances of the season to win 24-16, although Henry Tuilagi scored the only try of the night for the visitors, and seven Matthew Burke penalties and a Tom May drop-goal securing the points.

Leicester come north on the back of a 28-15 bonus-point win over Saracens at Welford Road on Monday, when Alesana Tuilagi (2) and Ben Kay scored tries to go with a penalty try. The win was achieved despite beginning the game with Andy Goode, and England captain Martin Corry on the bench, but as usual Leicester have huge strength in depth with Ian Humphreys kicking all conversions from fly-half, the international pair of Leo Cullen and Kay in the second row, and promising youngster Jordan Crane at number 8.

Pat Howard’s international-packed squad boasts an amazing twelve England internationals: Goode, Corry and Kay being joined by Leon Lloyd, Lewis Moody, Louis Deacon, Julian White, George Chuter, Harry Ellis, Graham Rowntree, Tom Varndell and Ollie Smith.

Add to this Cullen, Paul Burke and Geordan Murphy who have over 70 Irish caps between them, 40-cap Italian prop Martin Castrogiovanni, and the powerful Pacifics Alesana and Henry Tuilagi and Seru Rabeni, and a raft of up-and-coming young players, it adds up to the strongest squad in England. And a heck of a task for the Falcons on Sunday, even if captain Matthew Burke recovers from concussion and becomes a British citizen.

Worcester sneaking a win against Northampton makes this another vital game, as we are now only seven points off bottom. A bit too close for my liking.

The Falcons take the field with the pack which beat Sale restored, meaning Joe McDonnell captains the side and Matt Thompson, Jason Oakes and Geoff Parling are back. Jamie Noon returns from three weeks out with an ankle injury, meaning Toby Flood can move back to fly-half. Anthony Elliott replaces Matthew Burke.

15 Anthony Elliott
14 Tom May
13 Mathew Tait
12 Jamie Noon
11 John Rudd
10 Toby Flood
9 James Grindal
1 Joe McDonnell (captain)
2 Matt Thompson
3 Micky Ward
4 Mark Sorenson
5 Jason Oakes
6 Geoff Parling
7 Ben Woods
8 Russell Winter

Replacements:
16 Jon Golding
17 Andy Long
18 Andy Buist
19 Brent Wilson
20 Mark Mayerhofler
21 Lee Dickson
22 Loki Crichton