England internationals turn out for Tigers

All seven of Leicester’s World Cup heroes are set to feature in Saturday’s squad for the Zurich Premiership clash with Bath at Welford Road.

England returned home from Australia with the Webb Ellis Trophy just yesterday but most of the players are already back with their clubs while many are expecting to be in action on the weekend.

Leicester were hit harder than most by World Cup call-ups – at one point losing an entire forward pack – and have paid the price with a dreadful start to the season which sees them fourth from bottom in the Premiership.

But their England contingent, led by Martin Johnson, Neil Back and Ben Kay, will come to the rescue by making themselves available for Saturday’s encounter against the Tigers’ old rivals Bath.

Julian White, Dorian West and Martin Corry only played small parts in the World Cup campaign so are still fresh while Back, Johnson and Kay have told director of rugby Dean Richards they want to be considered for the match.

Welford Road is already sold out for Saturday; every one of the 1,000 tickets which were still on sale before the World Cup final kicked off had been snapped up within five minutes of England’s triumph.

“We’ve never known anything like it – we had a 1,000 seats left but the phone lines went mad and they were gone extremely quickly. The club shop was as busy as a matchday, even though we were playing up at Rotherham,” said a Tigers spokesman.

While Leicester may be doing a roaring trade, reports that every Premiership match this Saturday is sold out have proved premature.

Gloucester expect their last remaining tickets to go tomorrow and Newcastle also still have some on sale, while Harlequins are not expecting a full house against Leeds despite the possibility Will Greenwood and Jason Leonard may be in action.

However, Premier Rugby, the umbrella organisation for the 12 Premiership clubs, are expecting the busiest weekend this season.