Saints v Leicester: Teams

Cockerill: 'Great occasion'

Related links

Teams

• Leicester
• Northampton

Also see

• Sky Sports experts
• Rugby on Sky
• Live scores
• Video highlights
• Bet now

Internationals Julian White, Alesana Tuilagi and Ben Kay return to the Leicester Tigers line-up for Saturday's Guinness Premiership derby encounter with Northampton Saints.

Tighthead prop White joins Marcos Ayerza and Mefin Davies in the front row, while World Cup winner Kay teams up with Geoff Parling at lock.

Tuilagi comes in on the wing, with Scott Hamilton moving to full-back in the absence of Ireland international Geordan Murphy.

Back-rower Craig Newby leads the team as captain for the first time, while Sam Vesty and Johne Murphy are recalled to the matchday 23.

Head coach Richard Cockerill said: "It should be a great occasion. It's first versus second in the table, live on TV and a local derby, so there's a decent mix there for a good game.

"We've got a five-point lead in the league but the other sides have a game in hand on us. If we can win this weekend, we beat one of our nearest rivals and that puts us that bit further ahead. But if we lose, everyone else gets that bit closer to us."

Emotions

Tigers are without Lucas Amorosino, Richard Blaze, Tom Croft, Dan Hipkiss and Aaron Mauger due to injury. Geordan Murphy, Martin Castrogiovanni, Dan Cole, Louis Deacon, Lewis Moody and Toby Flood are on international duty.

The Saints and Leicester lie respectively second and first in the Guinness Premiership table, and Franklin's Gardens has been sold out for several weeks.

Northampton director of rugby Jim Mallinder said on Firday that the Saints team must return to their form of the previous weeks to put pressure on the Tigers.

"We will certainly have to improve massively from the performance at the Stoop if we are to beat Leicester," he said.

"They have hit an excellent run of form recently that has taken them to the top of the Guinness Premiership.

"Despite losing several players to international duty they are able to draft in experienced guys into their first team, and as we saw in the LV= Cup game a few weeks ago and the Guinness Premiership match at Welford Road in October, they will be able to take advantage of any mistake that we may make.

"The reaction to the Harlequins game has been positive. No one at the Saints likes losing and we have been fortunate not to have experienced the emotions that come with losing all that often over the past few months.

"The players knew that they could have done a lot better and in the training this week there has been a lot of determination to put the game behind us and kick on, starting tomorrow evening."

Northampton: 15 Bruce Reihana, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Jon Clarke, 12 James Downey, 11 Paul Diggin, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 Lee Dickson, 8 Phil Dowson (c), 7 Neil Best, 6 Courtney Lawes, 5 Juandre Kruger, 4 Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe, 3 Brian Mujati, 2 Brett Sharman, 1 Soane Tonga'uiha.
Replacements: 16 Andy Long, 17 Regardt Dreyer, 18 Darren Morris, 19 James Cannon, 20 Mark Easter, 21 Alan Dickens, 22 Shane Geraghty, 23 Chris Mayor.

Leicester Tigers: 15 Scott Hamilton, 14 Alesana Tuilagi, 13 Matt Smith, 12 Anthony Allen, 11 Lote Tuqiri, 10 Jeremy Staunton, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Jordan Crane, 7 Ben Woods, 6 Craig Newby (c), 5 Ben Kay, 4 Geoff Parling, 3 Julian White, 2 Mefin Davies, 1 Marcos Ayerza.
Replacements: 16 George Chuter, 17 Boris Stankovich, 18 Robbie Harris, 19 Calum Green, 20 Brett Deacon, 21 James Grindal, 22 Sam Vesty, 23 Johne Murphy.