Aironi V Tigers HEC

This coming Saturday Leicester are on the away leg to Italian side Aironi.

The Italians, so often seen as the whipping boys of the HEC have moved on in recent years and now they are getting regular game time in the Rabodirect, they have produced some great performances and started to earn some much overdue respect.

Most Tigers fans, myself included, are fairly confident we will get a win here (I said that last week against LI and look how that went! ) but that is not to dismiss or take lightly the challenge that Aironi will present.

Despite some improved performances and a few close losses Aironi are firmly planted at the bottom of the Rabo with just 1 win from 8, compared to Tigers 2 wins from 8. That alone to some may suggest a closer match up and potential banana skin for Tigers but is that realistic?

With both eyes open I can see that for Aironi to lose 18 - 6 against Munster & again against Glasgow (who are 3rd & 4th in the Robocelt) they are a much improved team and are possibly very unlucky to be where they are...

But with my one eye I can't see beyond Tigers winning this around 35 - 9 hopefully with a BP.

Here's hoping anyway!

Are any of the Leicester Centres fit for the match (Allen,Twelvetrees,Tuilagi & Tait)? Losing so many centres may make the bonus point difficult.

The Aironi pack impresses me. They are fairly physical and while I know Leicester pride themselves on the forward battle but I think Aironi may suprise you in this area.

They also have Masi back which is a big bonus for them.

Overall I think Leicester really need to win this game and will do enough to do so but I just dont see a bonus point win on the cards. 3-5 point win for Leicester for me.

No returning centres for us... Closest is Billy, but he is likely still a couple of weeks away...

Hopefully our very strong pack will bring us through. The backs need to be far more accurate though.

Your pack is pretty decent, quite looking forward to watching the front row battle, especially against Mas who is pretty damn good.

But your backs are very weak & will leak trys. 2nd string at best.

in a way this is a tricky first fixture. leicester have not found their form since the world cup yet and 5 point wins over aironi are likely vital to topping the group. you can not afford a slow start in this competition.

No sign on the Tigers website yet of the team for the trip to Aironi, but Tigers haven't been posting them until late Thursday or Friday recently.

I'd imagine we are going to get a similar team to last week against Irish but I'm hoping that Youngs will be back this week. We are missing Manu at the moment, that's for sure.

Forsyth was left out of the A League game on Monday which would suggest that perhaps Cockerill intends to bring him into the centres as he has scored a lot of tries for the club at A League level and has done well at Notts previously. With Hamilton's dire form a centre combo of Smith/Forsyth with Agulla pushing back out to the wing would be better.

We are certainly missing Manu at the minute, he is a class apart from the rest of the centres we have and probabley a class apart from any outside centre in the AP.

Just seen Tigers HC squad:

http://www.ercrugby.com/eng/matchcentre/leicester_tigers.php?section=2

Jimmy Stevens was new to me, apparently he is a hooker.

Stevens is the same age as Harris and Bower, all have had appearences at under 20 level (appearence for Stevens I think). He has been playing down at Notts as the second or third choice getting some game time last season but less so this. Should be a decent enough player (club man) once he has grown up, as hookers rarely are at their best when aged 20. Think he was on the bench for the 2010 AP final because of injuries to the other first team hookers.

Any updates on the Tigers team for Aironi?

My laptap doesn't seem to get on with the Tigers website and explorer locks up or crashes everytime I try to go on it!

Not as of 12.10pm.

It will be posted as soon as we have it

Aironi Rugby
15Ruggero Trevisan
14Sinoti Sinoti
13Andrea Masi
12Matteo Pratichetti
11Giovanbattista Venditti
10Luciano Orquera
9Tyson Keats
1Salvatore Perugini
2Fabio Ongaro
3Fabio Staibano
4Quintin Geldenhuys
5Marco Bortolami
6Nicola Cattina
7Simone Favaro
8Frans Viljoen

16Roberto Santamaria17Matias Aguero18Lorenzo Romano19Josh Sole20Filippo Ferrarini21Giorgio Bronzini22Naas Olivier23Gilberto Pavan

Leicester Tigers
15Geordan Murphy
14Niall Morris
13Matt Smith
12Andy Forsyth
11Alesana Tuilagi
10Toby Flood
9Sam Harrison
1Marcos Ayerza
2George Chuter
3Dan Cole
4Louis Deacon
5Geoff Parling
6Tom Croft
7Jules Salvi
8Thomas Waldrom

16Tom Youngs17Boris Stankovich18Martin Castrogiovanni19George Skivington20Steve Mafi21Micky Young22Jeremy Staunton23Scott Hamilton

Pack looks good, Cole starts ahead of Castro.
Backs look iffy. Morris selected ahead of hamilton brings more pace, and Forsyth is a genuine starter. Good to see Mickey Young involved again.

Agreed. The pack looks solid and hopefully we will dominate the set pieces and the breakdown because of it.

There are some questions in the backs but it is good to see some of the academy guys getting starts. Been hearing some good things about forsyth so lets hope he can reward cockers faith.

Forsyth has done the business at A League and at Notts and has seen some action on the wing so far this season. Be interesting to see how he goes in his favoured position of centre. Shame Agulla is now injured though as he was in good form.

Good to see Young back in the first team squad and that is a sizeable pack. The Italians are hardly lightweight up front either.

Comfortable win, but despite what people say about Aironi's improvement it still feels like a point lost.

Clermont will feel happiest in this group having secured the LBP.

A win is a win and it is the right way to start the HEC campaign but like LT it does feel like a point missed.

Hope to God we are going to get some of our backs returning this week or we are going to be in for a very rough time with Ulster.