Northampton Saints v Leicester Tigers: Big match preview

Venue: DPD Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens, Northampton

Date and kick-off time: Friday, November 6, 2026, 7.45pm

Weather forecast: 7c, cloudy

Live television coverage: TNT Sports 2

Referee: George Selwood

Assistant referees: John Meredith and Calum Howard

No.4: Harry Walbaum

TMO: Nikki O'Donnell

Saints: 15 James Martin; 14 Amena Caqusau, 13 Toby Thame, 12 Henry Lumley, 11 Thomas Rowe; 10 Hugh Shields, 9 Jonny Weimann (c); 1 Oliver Scola, 2 Craig Wright, 3 Sonny Tonga’uiha; 4 Chunya Munga, 5 James Bennett; 6 Archie Benson, 7 Charlie Ulcoq, 8 Josh Taylor.

Replacements: 16 Henry Walker, 17 Jordan Els, 18 Noah Buxton, 19 JJ van der Mescht, 20 Alex Mead, 21 Sonny Goode, 22 Will Catley, 23 Charlie Tamani.

Not available for Saints selection: Ben Alexander, Trevor Davison, Malik Faissal, Luke Green, Tom Litchfield, Archie McParland, Aidan Pugh, Edoardo Todaro, Lefty Zigiriadis.

International duty: Alex Coles, Emmanuel Iyogun, Tom Pearson, Henry Pollock, Fraser Dingwall, Tommy Freeman and Fin Smith (all England), Tom Lockett, George Hendy and James Pater (England A), Danilo Fischetti and Ion Neculai (Italy), Rory Hutchinson (Scotland) and Cleopas Kundiona (Zimbabwe).

Leicester Tigers: 15 George Pearson; 14 Ryan Crowley, 13 Will Wand, 12 Wilf McCarthy, 11 Ollie Hassell-Collins; 10 Joseph Woodward (c), 9 Ollie Allan; 1 Tarek Haffar, 2 Samiuela Moli, 3. Ale Loman; 4 Elliott Stooke, 5 James Thompson; 6 Osian Thomas, 7 Samuel Williams, 8 George Marsh.

Replacements: 16. Marcus Southwell, 17 Kieran Ryan, 18 Diamond Ayiehfor, 19 Tom Manz, 20 Joshua Manz, 21 James Townsend, 22 Oscar Talbot, 23 Ollie Myall.

Most recent meeting: Saturday, October 24, 2026: Leicester Tigers 28 Saints 7 (Gallagher PREM)

Saints defence coach Jim Henry: "It’s great for the boys to be able to put the shirt on and play at home on a Friday night. It’s perfect for them and there are a lot of the lads who are really excited for it. They’re desperate to go. A lot of what we get out of the first-team pool – the lads you see in the PREM and in Europe – their performances are driven by the quality of the training week, which is driven by the lads just behind it. Those lads have worked really hard across this block to prepare those boys for the PREM and Europe, and now they’re getting their go on Friday night. There are a lot of lads who are pretty keen to get stuck in."

Leicester Tigers attack coach Rod Seib: "We're wearing a Leicester jersey so we're there to win. We compete to win, that's part of the DNA of the place. There's no doubt we're going out there to put our best foot forward, recognising however in this international window we lose quite a few players, so we need to be able to adjust and adapt our game."

Opposition danger man: Ollie Hassell-Collins is an experienced and talented wing capable of causing problems if he gets enough of the ball.