After victory over Loughborough in front of a record league crowd at Mattioli Woods Welford Road last weekend, Leicester Tigers are on the road again on Saturday with the trip Novocastrians in the North-East.
The teams held the last two unbeaten records in the division going into Round 5 last week where Tigers came out on top of a thriller against neighbours Loughborough Town while Novos lost 33-10 away to defending champions Cheltenham who leapfrogged their rivals into second place in the table.
After celebrating a derby win, Tigers head of women’s rugby Vicky Macqueen said the squad had quickly changed focus to another away game and the meeting with a Novos team who started the season strongly with consecutive wins in the opening four rounds.
In team news announced on Thursday evening, Tigers make four changes, with Sophie McMeekin and Zoe Warrington set for a first start among the forwards and Abi Gordon and Lucrezia Iavarone added to the backline. Molly Draycott returns to the squad among the replacements.
“I’m really proud of the way we’ve managed to make so much progress from what is really just 10 weeks since we first got the group together in the summer,” said Vicky Macqueen, head of Tigers’ women’s and girls’ rugby programme.
“That is testament to the hard work of the players, the coaches and the wider team to make sure we get as much detail as possible.
“The players have really bought into the programme and they genuinely look like they want to play for each other. You can sense that in training and in every game so far.”
Saturday’s meeting features the league’s two leading points scorers, with Novos’ Rachel Torrance contributing 38 points so far, one more than Tigers centre Katie Childs who was among the tryscorers in last week’s win over Loughborough.
Tigers will be in the blue change kit for the trip to Sutherland Park in Newcastle (NE7 7SZ). Kick-off is at 2.00pm.
The next home game is against Harrogate Ladies at Mattioli Woods Welford Road on Saturday, November 19 (3.00pm). Men’s team season ticket holders can book their free place with a code emailed from the Tigers ticket office. Match tickets are available now, price £9 adults/£2 under-18s.
