Hipkiss starts alongside Aaron Mauger for the Tigers’ penultimate home fixture of the regular Guinness Premiership season.
“We’ve worked on a few things that didn’t go so well in the matches against Bath and the Ospreys,” says the 25-year-old. “We’ve got to try and go back to what we’re good and at we’re keen to really test sides. We haven’t asked as many questions of defences as we’d have liked recently and we’ve made it a little easier for the opposition when they’ve had the ball against us. They’re the two main things we need to work on, and we have done.”
Hipkiss knows that Bristol will provide a stern test for the 2006/07 Premiership winners, but the Tigers Academy product is determined to be part of a winning side this afternoon.
“They’re a good side and they’ll be keen to turn us over. They’ve got a very strong defence, but we’ve played against strong defences in the last few games, so we know what we’ve got to do. It’s a good chance for us to bounce back, and that’s exactly what we want.”
Fellow Tiger Johne Murphy, who isn’t involved in today’s match against the West Country side, believes Tigers have the character needed to battle through to the end-of-season play offs.
“Leicester are renowned for bouncing back,” says Murphy. “We’ve backed ourselves into a corner, and we have to fight our way out. It’s game on for us but we know we have to keep working hard and try to enjoy it. We’ve got three massive games left and we’re looking forward to the challenge. Hopefully, we can pull it off.
