Leicester v Newcastle: Teams
Jonny Wilkinson is one of eight returnees to Newcastle's XV for Saturday's Guinness Premiership trip to Leicester.
Last Updated: 25/01/08 9:44am
Newcastle Falcons director John Fletcher has named his team for Saturday's Guinness Premiership trip to Leicester Tigers, with a number of big names returning following last weekend's 15-try demolition of Cetransa El Salvador.
Carl Hayman, Jon Golding, Andy Long, Andy Perry, Tom May, John Rudd, Jonny Wilkinson and James Grindal all come back into to the line-up after being left out of the European Challenge Cup fixture - not that they were missed in Newcastle's 97-0 victory against the Spanish champions.
Explaining his selection dilemmas following last weekend's thrashing, Fletcher said: "A number of players have been knocking on my door this week asking why they aren't playing, but those are the decisions I have to make as a director of rugby and I believe we have a very strong side capable of going down there and asking them serious questions.
"The whole squad wants to play, they all think they should be in the starting XV every week and rightly so, that's the attitude I want them to have. But the reality is that we can only put 15 out on the pitch and another seven on the bench.
"When guys don't play they get cheesed off, that's just the nature of sport, and it's up to me to deal with that."
Having watched Tigers defeat Leinster in Heineken Cup action last weekend, Fletcher said of Saturday's opponents: "One thing you always get with Leicester is intensity.
"They will come hard at your set piece and incredibly hard at the tackle area. The breakdown will be contested like it's never been contested before, because that's very much what they are about.
"They need to stop teams from playing because of how they defend. If they do that, which they often do, then it will be a long old afternoon for us, but our focus is on getting the ball away from that breakdown area and playing our own game.
"You know what you're going to get with Leicester, and it's just a case of can you get yourself in to the game, can you get enough ball to impose your style on to the play and can you get enough points to be in with a shout of winning it with 10 or 15 minutes to go."
Leicester team news to follow...
Newcastle Falcons: 15 Mathew Tait, 14 Tom May, 13 Jamie Noon (captain), 12 Toby Flood, 11 John Rudd; 10 Jonny Wilkinson, 9 James Grindal; 1 Jon Golding, 2 Andy Long, 3 Carl Hayman, 4 Andy Perry, 5 Mark Sorenson, 6 Brent Wilson, 7 Ben Woods, 8 Russell Winter.
Replacements: 16 Matt Thompson, 17 Micky Ward, 18 Geoff Parling, 19 Phil Dowson, 20 Lee Dickson, 21 Tim Visser, 22 Ollie Phillips.
Leicester: TBA