Saints captain Dylan Hartley

The Northampton Saints team has been named for tomorrow afternoon’s East Midlands Aviva Premiership Rugby semi-final derby at Leicester’s Welford Road.

The Aviva Premiership Rugby honours have been split between Northampton and Leicester so far this season, with each team winning its respective home match.

But with a place at Twickenham at stake, director of rugby Jim Mallinder said today that the Saints faced a massive challenge against a Tigers team that has reached the last six Premiership Rugby Finals.

“It is going to be a massive game,” he said. “Leicester are a physical and direct side who have had a lot of success this season, and they have deservedly finished top of the table at the end of the 22 rounds. They are also the reigning champions, and know what it takes to win at this stage of the season.

“But while we know the size of the challenge we are not going to Welford Road just to make up the numbers. We have played some good rugby in recent matches and are going into the game in good spirits. The players have prepared well this week and know that only their best performance will be good enough if we are to get a positive result against Leicester.

“We also know that individual awards will mean nothing if we don’t play together as a team. At this stage of the season nothing else matters aside from winning matches and that is all we are caring about at this time.”

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS TEAM TO PLAY LEICESTER

Aviva Premiership Rugby semi-final

Welford Road

Saturday, May 14th, 2011

Kick off 3:15pm

15 Ben Foden

14 Chris Ashton

13 Jon Clarke

12 James Downey

11 Bruce Reihana

10 Stephen Myler

9 Lee Dickson

1 Soane Tonga’uiha

2 Dylan Hartley (capt)

3 Brian Mujati

4 Courtney Lawes

5 Christian Day

6 Calum Clark

7 Phil Dowson

8 Roger Wilson

Replacements

16 Brett Sharman

17 Alex Waller

18 Tom Mercey

19 Mark Sorenson

20 Mark Easter

21 Stuart Commins

22 Shane Geraghty

23 Joe Ansbro