With the first weekend of the Guinness Premiership now under way, Pat Howard and Phillipe Saint Andre have both insisted that last season's Twickeham final has now been consigned to history. Tigers lost out to the Sharks 45-20 in May, but the two former internationals have told their players that what matters now is how they perform today.

"People have made a lot of the fact that our first match is against Sale, but we won't be focusing on what happened last year," said Howard. "That's history now - it's just important that we concentrate on the match itself and get off to a good start."

Sale director of rugby Phillipe Saint Andre echoed those sentiments, suggesting that his side won't be taking Tigers lightly.

"What a fantastic match to start the season," said Saint Andre. "We got the better of Leicester Tigers in May, but they are a great side and well coached. We have prepared well and all my players know what is expected of them."

Leicester Tigers team v Sale Sharks, Sunday September 3:

15 Sam Vesty
14 Geordan Murphy
13 Matt Cornwell
12 Daryl Gibson
11 Tom Varndell
10 Andy Goode
9 Harry Ellis
1 Alex Moreno
2 George Chuter
3 Martin Castrogiovanni
4 Ben Kay
5 James Hamilton
6 Louis Deacon
7 Shane Jennings
8 Martin Corry (captain)

Replacements:

16 Julian White
17 James Buckland
18 Henry Tuilagi
19 Tom Croft
20 Scott Bemand
21 Dan Hipkiss
22 Seru Rabeni

Sale Sharks:

15 Jason Robinson (captain)
14 Mark Cueto
13 Chris Mayor
12 Chris Bell
11 Oriol Ripol
10 Charlie Hodgson
9 Richard Wigglesworth
1 Lionel Faure
2 Sebastien Bruno
3 Stuart Turner
4 Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe
5 Chris Jones
6 Jason White
7 Magnus Lund
8 Sebastien Chabal

Replacements from:

Ben Evans, Pierre Goana, Andrew Sheridan, Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, Chris Day, Mark Taylor, Lee Thomas, Steve Hanley, Ben Foden