Leicester to protect England players

Leicester coach Richard Cockerill revealed none of the Tigers players named in England’s team to start against Ireland will play a full Guinness Premiership game this weekend.

Only Julian White is under consideration for a start against Worcester at Sixways after spending the last two weekends on the bench for England.

The likes of Martin Corry, Louis Deacon and George Chuter will only feature amongst the replacements, if at all.

But Cockerill insisted Leicester’s decision was not a direct response to the Twickenham request that Premiership clubs rest their senior England players.

The former Test hooker was frustrated that Rob Andrew’s request implied the Premiership clubs do not manage their players carefully enough.

He said: “We don’t over-play our players and I don’t think any other clubs do. The welfare of our players comes first.

“You only have to look back to the autumn when Julian White was played four games on the trot (by England) and we had to rest him for three weeks after that.

“We had the players’ interests first. England played him to near exhaustion.

“It is not just England players we look after, we look after all our international players across the board.

“We probably won’t play our Italian forward (Martin Castrogiovanni) and we probably won’t play our Irish back (Geordan Murphy) either.

“Our strategy is that we know we will lose these players for periods of time and we have built a strength of squad to deal with that. Other clubs may not have that luxury.

“But from a Leicester point of view we want to look after our best players because we have big games coming up after the Six Nations and we want them to be as fresh as possible.”

Newcastle confirmed last night that Jonny Wilkinson will be rested for the Falcons’ Premiership trip to second-placed Bristol.

The Falcons’ director of rugby John Fletcher said: “We believe this is a decision in the best interests of the club and the player.

“Jonny has started two tough international matches, taken a lot of bumps and bruises, and we have reached a joint decision.”

Newcastle confirmed their two England replacements, Toby Flood and Mat Tait, will both be involved against Bristol.

“Each player has been taken case by case based on what is best, and for Toby and Mathew we believe playing for their club down at Bristol is the appropriate course of action to take,” added Fletcher.

Andrew made the request because he is particularly concerned about the impact three Sunday fixtures could have on England’s performance just six days later at Croke Park.

Nine of England’s starting XV could potentially be involved in the Newcastle v Bristol, Saracens v Gloucester and Wasps v Sale fixtures.

But it is believed most clubs will take the same approach as Newcastle and Leicester.