By apb
April 2 2005

The teams for the first leg of the European Shield semi-final between Worcester Warriors and Leeds Tykes were announced a day or two ago. For Leeds, several players are rested, including all the first-choice front-row, in what is still a remarkably strong side on paper.

Gordon Ross, Scott Morgan and Diego Albanese are other notable bench-warmers today, allowing some valuable match practise for Craig McMullen. Phil Davies has said he wants to keep as much momentum going as possible from the great win last week against Leicester, and thus the centre pairing of Christophers and Bell is maintained, as is the second-row partnership of Palmer and Hooper.

Tim Stimpson makes a welcome return to the side at full-back, and Tom Biggs moves to the wing to accomodate him, at the expense of Andre Snyman who is rested this week. Maybe the emotional torment of signing for another year has taken it out of the poor boy!!

Many fans have differing view as to how this game should be approached. Some say we should ignore it, some say we should go for it, some say we should plough a middle furrow and look to maintain a core team and give some game time to up and coming young players. In as far as its possible, I think Phil Davies has done this, the slight fly in the ointment being that most of our promising youngsters are off at the U19s Word Cup, representing England!

Worcester Warriors 15.Delport 14.Sampson 13.Hinshelwood (c) 12.Trueman 11.Hylton 10.Hayes 9.Cole 1.Sparks 2.Van Niekerk 3.Forty 4.Murphy 5.MacLeod-Henderson 6.Vaili 7.Hickey 8.Mason 16.Windo 17.Gillies 18.Daly 19.Hall 20.Powell 21.Brown 22.Roke

Leeds Tykes 15. Tim Stimpson 14. Tom Biggs 13. Phil Christophers 12. Chris Bell 11. David Rees 10. Craig McMullen 9. Alan Dickens 1. Michael Cusack 2. Rob Rawlinson 3. Matt Holt 4. Stuart Hooper (c) 5. Tom Palmer 6. Jon Dunbar 7. Dan Hyde 8. Alix Popham 16. Mike Shelley 17. Mark Regan 18. Scott Morgan 19. Richard Parks 20. Mark McMillan 21. Gordon Ross 22. Diego Albanese

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