'Physical Tigers pose huge challenge' - Afoa

The Bears sit top of pile approaching the halfway stage, but Afoa knows his side will need to raise their game to match Steve Borthwick’s in-form Tigers.

'A big old pack'

“Leicester been playing well and like all of the teams, you go through good spells and bad spells. Their game has been going well, they’ve got a good set-piece.

“They are a serious side with a big old meaty pack, so it’s going to be a challenge for sure. We haven’t been as good as we hoped in the last few weeks, but we feel like we’ve still got the goods in us to make sure we’re better than we were last week.

“It’s the final game of the first half of the season, so it would be nice to move into the second half in a position where we are still on top.

“Being top of the table is a new challenge for us, as we move forward as a club and as we are developing. But we want to embrace that challenge and it just shows that we need to be better every game, because if you’re slightly off, as we’ve seen, teams are going to do you.

“To be honest, in the end, we were probably lucky to hold on for that draw. The challenge this week is to learn from it and put in a much stronger performance.”