IT’S BEEN A considerable number of years since Leicester Tigers were last crowned kings of European Rugby, but Welford Road remains one of those special away days in the Champions Cup.

By the time this year’s decider in Marseille rolls around, it will be 20 years since Leicester last won the Heineken Cup. It’s hardly been all doom and gloom since – with four Premiership titles arriving between 2007 and 2013 – but having fallen off the pace in recent years, there is a growing sense the good times are coming back to Welford Road.

Since Steve Borthwick stepped up to the position of head coach in January 2020, the club have been on a steady upward curve.

They improved on an 11th place finish in the 2019/20 season to finish sixth in the Premiership last year, while also reaching the final of the Challenge Cup, losing by a point to Philipe Saint-André’s revitalised Montpellier. 

The progress has continued this season. They currently sit top of the Premiership with nine wins from nine and kick-started their Champions Cup campaign with a win at Bordeaux last weekend. On Sunday they host a Connacht side brimming with talent and full of confidence following their own six-try win over Stade Francais.

It’s not quite David versus Goliath, but the home side will be heavy favourites to continue their unbeaten start to the season. For Connacht – who lost a Challenge Cup round of 16 tie at Leicester back in April – it’s all about embracing the challenge. 

Head coach Andy Friend has been drilling home the message that his team belong at this level. Few better arenas to put that to the test.

“It’s why you play,” Friend says. “You play to be on those bigger stages and for a lot of our blokes this will be the biggest stage that they’ve been on. 

“We’ve got a lot of young fellas in the squad who started their professional rugby careers with us during Covid when there was nobody (in the stands). Even 5,500 or 6,000 people at the weekend here at the Sportsground was a massive buzz for them. Multiply that by four or five, and that’s what Welford Road is going to be.

We actually talked about it this morning. These are the weeks that you play rugby for, massive occasions. Leicester Tigers, unbeaten all year, on their home turf, potentially 20,000-plus people there – brilliant, bring it on. 

“I think there is a real buzz and a real energy from our blokes that they all want to be there.”

That most recent meeting between the sides produced a manic, high tempo affair, the teams sharing 11 tries with no fans present to appreciate the contest.

Connacht feel they have taken their game to a new level since, but so too have the Tigers, who employ a different style to the exciting, ambitious brand of attacking rugby being pushed by the province this season.

The fear would be that Connacht may wilt in the face of Leicester’s power, even if they are set to welcome back the talismanic figure of Bundee Aki. Friend recently saw his team outmuscled by Leinster at the RDS, while even in victory on Sunday, they looked vulnerable around the maul, an area the Tigers will be more than happy to target. 

We definitely know Leicester are going to come at that. A, that’s their game style, and B, they will have seen that and will want to have a crack at that. We’re fully aware of that. We just need to be better in that area. There are a few technical things we need to work on, which have already been addressed this morning, and we’ll look to put those in place over the course of the week. 

“None of us are naive enough to not know what threats are coming, we’ve just got to be better at trying to handle those.

“They are definitely improved (since last season) because the systems that Steve and their coaching staff have put in place, they are probably nine months further down the track using those. They are definitely a better footie team now. And winning becomes infectious as well, and they have been winning. 

“At the same time I think we’re a better footie team too (now). We are still building and it’s nice to come off the back of a good win against Stade before we head there.”

It will be a busy week on the training field, but as always, Friend sees just as much value in the mental preparation.

“It’s the great saying, if you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re probably right. So we need to go there believing we can, and if we do believe that then we put ourselves in the contest. If we believe that we can’t, then there’s no point turning up in my view.

“I think mentally we have to have that attitude, and I believe we have got that. This week we’ll spend putting the detail onto that and just reassuring the players that we actually do have the gameplan to go and cause some issues.

“Like anything in top level sport, the top two inches is pretty damn important.”