League Leaders Tigers take on current champions Quins at the Stoop in a heavyweight battle

With just a handful of games left in the regular season, every point is vital. On Saturday at the Stoop, it’s first against third when Harlequins welcome the current league leaders Leicester Tigers to a sold-out Twickenham Stoop.

Tigers are sitting pretty at the top of the pile with an impressive 80 points from their 20 gamers played so far.

The current Gallagher Premiership champions Quins are in third place, twelve points behind Tigers and four behind second placed Saracens.

With Tigers all but assured of a home semi-final it is a real dogfight for the remaining play-off places.

Harlequins will be looking over their shoulder with Exeter Chiefs six points behind them but having played one more game than the Londoners.

Quins go into Saturday’s game on the back of a wonderful victory over French Top 14 side Montpellier 33-20 at the Stoop. Unfortunately for Quins they lost out to the current Top 14 leaders on aggregate by the slimmest of margins, just one point.

Leicester, who have only lost in the league three times this season will travel down to London full of confidence after a 27-17 home victory also in the European Champions Cup against Clermont at Welford Road.

The last three meetings between the sides have resulted in a couple of wins for Tigers. On the last occasion the two locked horns back in December at Welford Road, Leicester got over the line in a tense affair 16-14.

On the previous two other games between these two sides, Leicester defeated Harlequins 35-29 in May 2021 with Quins getting the victory over Tigers at home 37-24 back in February 2021.

The head-to-head between these giants of English rugby favours the East Midlands side who have 48 with Harlequins winning a total 22 times.

Tigers have managed 72 tries so far this season in the Premiership and accumulated 603 points with Harlequins picking up 524 points and scoring 78 tries.

However, one stat that does favour the Londoners is they have picked up 16 bonus points in their 20 games played, the most by any side.

Team news ahead of the game

Harlequins have made two changes to the side that defeated Montpellier last weekend at the Stoop. Quins welcome back captain Stephan Lewies after injury with flanker Luke Wallace making the starting 15.

Harlequins Starting XV

1. Joe Marler
2. Jack Walker
3. Will Collier
4. Matt Symons
5. Hugh Tizard
6. Stephan Lewies ©
7. Luke Wallace
8. Alex Dombrandt
9. Danny Care
10. Marcus Smith
11. Cadan Murley
12. Andre Esterhuizen
13. Joe Marchant
14. Louis Lynagh
15. Huw Jones

 

Impact Players

16. Joe Gray
17. Simon Kerrod
18. Wilco Louw
19. George Hammond
20. James Chisholm
21. Tom Lawday
22. Lewis Gjaltema
23. Nick David

 

For Leicester, Hanro Liebenberg will captain the side in a new look back row alongside Olly Robinson and Sean Jansen, with Jansen making his Premiership debut.

Harry Wells is scheduled to make his 150^th Leicester Tigers appearance and 100^th appearance in Premiership Rugby.

STARTING XV
15 Freddie Burns [96]
14 Harry Potter [35]
13 Matías Moroni [29]
12 Matt Scott [44]
11 Nemani Nadolo [31]
10 George Ford [122]
9 Ben Youngs [276]
1 Francois van Wyk [16]
2 Charlie Clare [46]
3 Joe Heyes [95]
4 Calum Green [85]
5 Eli Snyman [18]
6 Hanro Liebenberg [52]
7 Olly Robinson [5]
8 Sean Jansen [2]

REPLACMENTS
16 Tom Cowan-Dickie [6]
17 Ellis Genge [104]
18 Dan Cole [283]
19 Harry Wells [149]
20 Jasper Wiese [38]
21 Richard Wigglesworth [32]
22 Bryce Hegarty [13]
23 Chris Ashton [5]

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