Leicester aim to take five points
Leicester will face the Scarlets in their second round of games in the Heineken Cup at Welford Road on Sunday, 17 October.
Leicester will go into the game without centre Dan Hipkiss, but influential out-half Toby Flood is expected to return.
Leicester’s director of rugby, Richard Cockerill said, "Toby Flood trained fully on Monday and Tuesday. He was pretty close last week but we didn't want to risk him.”
However Cockerill admitted that they have a number of injury worries.
"Richard Blaze, Geoff Parling and Louis Deacon are still out. We are hoping Blaze will take some part in the LV= Cup games or the Australia game in three or four weeks' time,” said Leicester’s director
of rugby.
"Deacon is still several weeks away and Parling will be [back] early December, maybe a week or two before that," added Cockerill.
The Scarlets will be pleased that Jon Davies is expected to return.
The Welsh side’s defensive coach Simon Easterby said, "[We have] a couple of potential [players] coming back in to the mix with Jon Davies in particular.”
"[Jon] played well against the Dragons a couple of weeks ago and he is obviously somebody Leicester would be wary of”, added Easterby
"But we are not 100% sure whether he is going to be right. We have got a Sunday game so it's a decision we make later in the week.”
The Scarlets beat Perpignan 43-34 in their opening game of the Heineken Cup and Easterby was pleased with the performance of the centres with the absence of Davies.
"Gareth Maule went well on the weekend against Perpignan so we are lucky we have got a bit of strength now in that position," said Easterby
Steven Jones, Rhys Priestland and Regan King scored the tries for the Welsh side in the match against Perpignan and Stephen Jones scored 28 points in a fantastic performance that earned the Scarlets their
bonus point.
Jones will have to produce a similar performance away to Leicester if his side are to prevail.
Leicester narrowly beat the Italian side Treviso 34-29 away from home and they will be expecting a better performance at home against the Scarlets.
The English side struggled in the match, but tries from Matt Smith, Craig Newby, Martin Castrogiovanni, Ben Youngs and Alesana Tuilagi was enough for Leicester to snatch victory from a plucky Italian side.
Leicester will go into the match as favourites. Their forward pack which includes Castrogiovanni, Tom Croft and George Chuter should have too much power for the Scarlets.
With Geordan Murphy and Tuilagi in the backs, Leicester have a good mix of power, pace and guile. This should be enough to see of the Scarlets.
Leicester will expect to have a lot of the ball with their powerful pack and a lot of pressure will be put on Welsh international Stephen Jones.
If the Scarlets are to take anything out of the match they will rely on the out half. His tactical kicking and his place kicking will give the Scarlets reason to be confident.
Yet, despite Leicester’s poor display against Treviso they will expect to take the points against the Welsh side at home.
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