Premiership life used to be straightforward for everyone living in and around Leicester. Win the derby against Northampton and the pecking order in Midlands rugby would swiftly be confirmed. With Wasps moving to Coventry, a short hop down the M69 from the Tigers, it is a more congested and competitive landscape these days.
This has its advantages – a crowd of at least 23,000 is due at Welford Road for the visit of Wasps on Saturday – but if Leicester lose to the newly-relocated upstarts on the block it could also work the other way. For someone like Richard Cockerill, born and bred near Coventry, the effects are already being felt: “I’ve got people texting me who live in Coventry and want me to get them tickets for the weekend because they support Wasps. What’s that all about?”
Cockerill, whose team will be without Manu Tuilagi after he limped off suffering from a sore calf at Gloucester last Friday, is not entirely joking when he reflects on how far Wasps are encroaching on to Tigers’ territory. “Who knows where their boundaries are? They keep popping up everywhere. They’re at the bottom of the M69 and using Broadstreet RFC as their training ground … they’re already seeping into Leicester unfortunately. When you’re from Coventry that’s not overly welcome.
“We have an East Midlands derby with Saints that, at this point, is always going to be the strongest rivalry. Wasps is a new concept in terms of them upping sticks and moving. But they’re contenders, aren’t they? They finished above us last year and beat us well when we played them at the Ricoh.
“I think it’ll take a little while for it to become a local derby but the West Midlands has always been a big rugby area. We welcome the rivalry. We’ll have more supporters coming here than we would have done from the godforsaken place where they played before. In that sense it’s good for all four Midlands clubs; we’ll maybe have 2-3,000 more Wasps fans coming here this weekend.”
Even so, the club captain, Tom Youngs, is likely to stress to his players that allowing Wasps to depart Welford Road victorious will be taking neighbourly generosity too far. “I might have a little word about that in the dressing room,” admitted the hooker, who will pack down from the start alongside England’s Dan Cole, a replacement in the win at Kingsholm. “The rivalry’s always been there because of the tussles we’ve had in the past but if they do well I’m sure it will grow.” Wasps, who also won their opening game against Exeter, welcome back the fit-again Thomas Young at openside with Guy Thompson switching to No8 ahead of the England squad member Nathan Hughes. Joe Simpson starts at scrum-half with Dan Robson unavailable because of a tweaked calf.
Bath hand competitive debuts to Luke Charteris and Zach Mercer in a reshuffled pack to face Newcastle at the Rec but must soldier on without a number of injured internationals, including Taulupe Faletau, David Denton, Henry Thomas, David Wilson and Anthony Watson. The Falcons, buoyed by a first victory on the opening weekend for nine years, have made just one enforced front-row adjustment with Alex Rogers replacing the injured Taione Vea and are quietly hopeful of upsetting their hosts. “We didn’t win one away in the league last season and we know we need to alleviate that,” said Dean Richards, Newcastle’s director of rugby.
The Wallabies prop Greg Holmes will make his first league start for Exeter in Sunday’s game against Saracens, a repeat of May’s Premiership final. Geoff Parling will skipper the Chiefs but his England World Cup team-mate Owen Farrell, who sat out the opening game with a back strain, is not involved again. Gavin Henson has also failed to recover from a dead leg and will miss Bristol’s opening home Premiership fixture against Northampton, who prefer Stephen Myler to Harry Mallinder at fly-half.
Andy Cosslett, who chaired the organising committee for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, is set to be confirmed as the new chairman of the Rugby Football Union next month. Cosslett has been unanimously proposed to succeed Bill Beaumont, who is now the chairman of World Rugby.
