Saracens can shade heavyweight scrap at Leicester

Leicester v Saracens
BT Sport 1, 3pm Sunday

Saracens to win by a narrow margin is the wager to have in their televised Premiership clash at Leicester.

The champions, without a league loss since a trip to Exeter in March, have grabbed six try-bonus points out of seven this campaign.

However, even with the Tigers needing to pick themselves up from a trampling at Gloucester last weekend, any sort of win at Welford Road is always a welcome one and the game still has a heavyweight look to it despite autumn international demands and injuries.

The Sarries pack contains the legendary Springbok Schalk Burger, Michael Rhodes, Jackson Wray, out-of-favour Wallaby lock Will Skelton and France hooker Christopher Tolofua but they may not enjoy clear supremacy at the set-piece and breakdown.

Ex-England men Dan Cole and Tom Youngs are in the Leicester front-row, while Graham Kitchener and Will Spencer do the hard yards in the engine room. Mike Williams, Brendon O'Connor and Sione Kalamafoni are a breakaway trio that are all about destruction.

With both sets of outside backs looking handy with the ball, Saracen's systematic control at half-back should be key. Worcester had that control when they won 44-37 at Welford Road in mid-September. Sale lacked it, and a kicker, when they lost 19-15 in the East Midlands the following week.

Three Pro14 games run consecutively on Premier Sports from 1pm with the Kings hosting Connacht, Munster visiting Zebre and the Dragons doing battle with Edinburgh at Rodney Parade.

Take the Dragons with a five-point start. They are bottom of Conference B and head coach Bernard Jackman has a stadium ban but they have beaten Treviso and Zebre and hassled Cardiff in Newport this campaign.

Fourth-placed Edinburgh have lost all five road games this season and Richard Cockerill has named something of a mix-and-match side whereas the hosts welcome back a number of key players to their squad.

Recommendation
Saracens to win by one to 12 points
1pt 15-8 Betfair
Dragons +5
1pt 10-11 Betfred

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