Flanker Joaquin Moro has compared this weekend’s East Midlands Derby between his Leicester Tigers and leaders Northampton Saints to the Superclasico between Boca Juniors and River Plate. The game on Saturday pits third place Tigers looking to close the gap on Leaders Saints, and secure their spot in the playoffs.
Three of the Tigers travelled to Argentina with England – Freddie Steward, Joe Heyes and Jack van Poorvliet – took the opportunity to go to the Bombonera, the iconic home of Boca Juniors, before the two test series against Argentina last summer. After that visit, they all became fans of the blue and yellow half of Buenos Aires.
“This is a big game for us”
In the week of probably English rugby’s biggest domestic derby, River Plate fan Moro explained “on Monday, Jack came to me and told me this is a big game for us, this is like Boca-River in Argentina. I am a River Plate fan. The England boys who are here and went to Argentina last summer went to La Bombonera, they all have Boca shirts, so I’ll have to get them River ones now. They gave me the example of that derby to give me an idea of what this game means.”
“One of the fiercest rivalries”
It’s not just the players that think of this game as a derby rivalry. Northampton’s director of rugby Phil Dowson and Leicester’s Geoff Parling are close friends, that dates back to their time in the Newcastle academy at the start of their careers.
Dowson said “I really like Geoff, I think he’s a very good person and we’ve got a lot of shared history, coming through the academy together at Newcastle and playing together, playing against each other when we played for Northampton and Leicester. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, we would have zoom calls about lineouts and how to play against Leinster and all these different things.”
Their most recent catch-up happened over a dog walk three weeks ago, and both are keen to have a derby day win to chat about. Dowson said “Weirdly, now he is DoR there and I’m DoR here, in one of the fiercest rivalries in the domestic game. I don’t think that will get in the way of our friendship. I’m desperate to get one over on him and I imagine he would be the same. It’s like when you play against your mates or you compete with siblings. It’s one of those things where it means a bit more because you can chirp a little bit.”
“One of the biggest frustrations”
Dowson is eager to right the wrongs of his Welford Road experiences as a player, having never won at the home of the Saints.
Dowson added “One of the biggest frustrations of my career is that I never won at Welford Road, except for when I played for England A against Ireland A. I had a draw there I think, and they had a lot of very good teams in defence. Welford Road was a place of near misses, with league games and semi-finals and George Chuter going around holding up seven fingers because he’d made seven finals in a row.
“I’ve got mixed feelings about going to Welford Road. I sit on the bus back whether we have won or lost and I’m always grateful that we’ve got the derby, the chat that goes around about it. My wife works at Leicester Uni so all her students and staff friends are Leicester fans and give her a ton of stick. That is part of the joy of it as well.”
Expected Lineups
| Leicester Tigers | Northampton Saints |
| 15 Freddie Steward | 15 George Furbank (c) |
| 14 Adam Radwan | 14 Tommy Freeman |
| 13 Will Wand | 13 Rory Hutchinson |
| 12 Orlando Bailey | 12 Fraser Dingwall |
| 11 Ollie Hassell-Collins | 11 George Hendy |
| 10 James O’Connor | 10 Fin Smith |
| 9 Jack van Poorvliet | 9 Alex Mitchell |
| 1 Nicky Smith | 1 Emmanuel Iyogun |
| 2 Jamie Blamire | 2 Robbie Smith |
| 3 Joe Heyes | 3 Luke Green |
| 4 Ollie Chessum (c) | 4 Tom Lockett |
| 5 George Martin | 5 JJ van der Mescht |
| 6 Hanro liebenberg | 6 Josh Kemeny |
| 7 Tommy Reffell | 7 Sam Graham |
| 8 Joaquin Moro | 8 Callum Chick |
| Replacements | Replacements |
| 16 Charlie Clare | 16 Craig Wright |
| 17 Archie van der Flier | 17 Tom West |
| 18 Will Hurd | 18 Elliot Millar Mills |
| 19 Cameron Henderson | 19 Ed Prowse |
| 20 Samuel Williams | 20 Chunya Munga |
| 21 Tom Whiteley | 21 Henry Pollock |
| 22 Solomane Kata | 22 Archie McParland |
| 23 Izaia Perese | 23 Tom Litchfield |
This game promises to be a cracker and not one to be missed. Watch the game live on TNT Sports and HBO Max. Kick off at Welford Road is 15:05 this Saturday.
