Connacht undaunted by the challenge of taking on in-form Leicester Tigers

ANDY Friend takes his Connacht side into the Tigers’ enclosure on Sunday (1pm) for a Champions Cup meeting with the form team in Europe at what is expected to be a packed Welford Road.

Leicester have won all nine of their games in the English Premiership this season, and they made it a perfect 10 of competitive wins last weekend when travelling to the backyard of Top 14 leaders, Bordeaux Begles, and came away with a 16-13 win.

As statements of intent go, it was pretty well up there, but Friend this week batted way any suggestion of bringing a ‘sacrificial’ side to the English Midlands this weekend, insisting that the focus of the travelling party will be to win the game.

“We said at the front-end of this competition we want to be the first Connacht team to come out of the pool stages, we still believe in that, and we still want to be that team. We are aware of the challenge ahead of us, but we will definitely be going over there to compete.

“Welford Road, these are the weeks you play rugby for: massive occasions, Leicester Tigers, unbeaten all year, on their home turf, potentially 20,000 people there – brilliant, bring it on.

“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 is no point in turning up in my view. Mentally, we have to have that attitude, and I believe we have it,” Friend said in his media briefing this week.

Unusually, that briefing was not preceded by a squad update, as is the norm: whether that is because Connacht don’t want to give anything away to their visitors ahead of this Friday’s scheduled team announcement or not is a mystery, but Friend did confirm the potential inclusion of one iconic player, news that will give the underdogs a massive lift.

“At this stage he is looking likely to be available,” the Connacht coach said when asked about the availability of Bundee Aki, who has missed the last two games after picking up a knee injury on international duty with Ireland during the November internationals.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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