{"id":626365,"date":"2025-12-11T13:50:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T13:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626365\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T13:50:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T13:50:16","slug":"rieko-ioane-gets-champions-cup-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626365\/","title":{"rendered":"Rieko Ioane gets Champions Cup start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Round Two of the Investec Champions Cup kicks off with a cracking match on Friday night as Leicester Tigers clash with Leinster in a battle of the former champions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a boost to their side after an opening round defeat to La Rochelle, Leicester Tigers welcome back five senior internationals for this week\u2019s fixture with the Irish province.<\/p>\n

England\u2019s Freddie Steward, Joe Heyes and Jamie Blamire all return alongside Wales duo Tommy Reffell and Nicky Smith for a huge game at Mattioli Woods Welford Road.<\/p>\n

Flanker Reffell skippers the Tigers in the week partner Annabel gave birth to their daughter Nancy, and he\u2019s joined in the back-row by James Thompson and Joaquin Moro.<\/p>\n

Tom Whiteley will make his 50th appearance for Leicester<\/a> and Solomone Kata \u2013 who reached the half-century off the bench last week \u2013 starts alongside Will Wand at centre.<\/p>\n

Friday night\u2019s fixture is a meeting of two European giants with six Investec Champions Cup<\/a> wins between them and promises to be quite the occasion in the East Midlands.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rieko Ioane<\/a> will make his first start for Leinster<\/a> as he gets the nod at centre alongside the returning Robbie Henshaw as part of seven alterations to the XV.<\/p>\n

Ireland stalwart James Lowe also returns to the team, with Tommy O\u2019Brien on the opposite wing and Jimmy O\u2019Brien at full-back.<\/p>\n

Harry Byrne has been named at fly-half, with Jamison Gibson-Park his partner at scrum-half.<\/p>\n

Readers\u2019 Team of the Year: Will the Springboks dominate the pack again? Cast your vote!<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Caelan Doris captains the team from number eight once more, with Jack Conan and Josh van der Flier completing an unchanged back-row.<\/p>\n

James Ryan will make his 99th Leinster appearance as he returns to the starting XV, with Joe McCarthy joining him in the second-row.<\/p>\n

Tadhg Furlong and R\u00f3nan Kelleher come in at tighthead prop and hooker respectively, while Paddy McCarthy continues at loosehead.<\/p>\n

Dan Sheehan, Jack Boyle and Thomas Clarkson provide the front-row cover, with Diarmuid Mangan and Max Deegan completing the forward replacements.<\/p>\n

Luke McGrath and Sam Prendergast offer cover for the half-backs, with Ciar\u00e1n Frawley completing the matchday 23.<\/p>\n

Prediction:<\/b> Leinster by 12<\/p>\n

The teams<\/p>\n

Leicester Tigers:<\/b> 15 Freddie Steward, 14 Adam Radwan, 13 Will Wand, 12 Solomone Kata, 11 Ollie Hassell-Collins, 10 Billy Searle, 9 Tom Whiteley, 8 Joaquin Moro, 7 Tommy Reffell (c), 6 James Thompson, 5 Harry Wells, 4 Cameron Henderson, 3 Joe Heyes, 2 Jamie Blamire, 1 Nicky Smith
Replacements: 16 Finn Theobald Thomas, 17 Archie van der Flier, 18 Will Hurd, 19 Tom Manz, 20 Sam Williams, 21 Ollie Allan, 22 Orlando Bailey, 23 Joseph Woodward<\/p>\n

Leinster:<\/b> 15 Jimmy O\u2019Brien, 14 Tommy O\u2019Brien, 13 Rieko Ioane, 12 Robbie Henshaw, 11 James Lowe, 10 Harry Byrne, 9 Jamison Gibson-Park, 8 Caelan Doris (c), 7 Josh van der Flier, 6 Jack Conan, 5 James Ryan, 4 Joe McCarthy, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 2 R\u00f3nan Kelleher, 1 Paddy McCarthy
Replacements:<\/b> 16 Dan Sheehan, 17 Jack Boyle, 18 Thomas Clarkson, 19 Diarmuid Mangan, 20 Max Deegan, 21 Luke McGrath, 22 Sam Prendergast, 23 Ciar\u00e1n Frawley<\/p>\n

Date:<\/b> Friday, December 12
Venue:<\/b> Mattioli Woods Welford Road
Kick-off:<\/b> 20:00 GMT
Referee:<\/b> Pierre Brousset (Fra)
Assistant Referees:<\/b> Vincent Blasco Baque (Fra), Julien Caulier (Fra)
TMO:<\/b> Tual Trainini (Fra)<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Readers\u2019 Team of the Year: Don\u2019t agree with World Rugby\u2019s Dream XV backline? Cast your vote!<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Round Two of the Investec Champions Cup kicks off with a cracking match on Friday night as Leicester…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[2383,225,20795,4306,12,69036,4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-626365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-champions-cup","9":"tag-home-page","10":"tag-leicester-tigers","11":"tag-leinster","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-rieko-ioane","14":"tag-rugby","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}