1
Trio of snubbed England players to start Leicester's Champions Cup clash
By Ian Cameron
Three major England omissions are set to start for Leicester Tigers as they take on Bordeaux Bègles at Welford Road in the Heineken Champions Cup.
George Ford, George Martin and Nic Dolly were all left out of Eddie Jones' 36-man Guinness Six Nations that was named on Tuesday.
Ford will captain the side at fly-half but he could yet get a call from Jones' with news breaking that Owen Farrell is likely to be unavailable for England's opening match of the tournament against Scotland on February 5th.
A Saracens statement read: “Owen Farrell suffered an injury in training this week ahead of the game against London Irish, ruling him out of the match. Owen was back in full training having recovered from the ankle injury he sustained against Australia during the Autumn internationals. We will have a further update after he sees a specialist early next week.”
There is however room in the side for a number of England call-ups. Joe Heyes starts at tighthead, while Ollie Chessum gets the nod at lock. England fullback Freddie Steward is named at fullback and England veteran Ben Youngs starts at nine, with Ellis Genge named on the bench.
Leicester Tigers' head coach Steve Borthwick said: “Bordeaux are an incredible side, probably the best team in Europe, and a club that boasts a wealth of resource as you can see through the depth and talent within their ranks.
“It will be a massive challenge for us on Saturday afternoon against what is a tremendous side coming to Mattioli Woods Welford Road.”
LEICESTER TIGERS:
15 Bryce Hegarty
14 Freddie Steward
13 Matt Scott
12 Dan Kelly
11 Hosea Saumaki
10 George Ford (c)
9 Ben Youngs
1 James Whitcombe
2 Nic Dolly
3 Joe Heyes
4 Ollie Chessum
5 Calum Green
6 George Martin
7 Tommy Reffell
8 Jasper Wiese
REPLACEMENTS
16 Charlie Clare
17 Ellis Genge
18 Nephi Leatigaga
19 Eli Snyman
20 Harry Wells
21 Jack van Poortvliet
22 Freddie Burns
23 Guy Porter
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Let's be real about these All Blacks
3
Why World Cup winner doesn’t blame All Black for leaving New Zealand
4
Tyrone Green decision has huge bearing on his international future
5
Latest Comments
That's really stupidly pedantic. Let's say the gods had smiled on us, and we were playing Ireland in Belfast on this trip. Then you'd be happy to accept it as a tour of the UK. But they're not going to Australia, or Peru, or the Philippines, they're going to the UK. If they had a match in Paris it would be fair to call it the "end-of-year European tour". I think your issue has less to do with the definition of the United Kingdom, and is more about what is meant by the word "tour". By your definition of the word, a road trip starting in Marseilles, tootling through the Massif Central and cruising down to pop in at La Rochelle, then heading north to Cherbourg, moving along the coast to imagine what it was like on the beach at Dunkirk, cutting east to Strasbourg and ending in Lyon cannot be called a "tour of France" because there's no visit to St. Tropez, or the Louvre, or Martinique in the Caribbean.
Go to commentsJust thought for a moment you might have gathered some commonsense from a southerner or a NZer and shut up. But no, idiots aren't smart enough to realise they are idiots.
Go to comments