Leicester Tigers

With a number that high it sounds like it would most likely be a piece of kit from his time as defence coach as player squad numbers were much lower than that. The higher numbers like 60something are/were normally for coaches. Academy squad numbers are similar but prefixed by the letter "A".

Tigers do use squad numbers on their training kit. They are the small white numbers at the bottom on their training shirts. I don't think the squad numbers stayed contstant for each player throughout their Tigers career though so it would be difficult to be certain that a particular number was Backy...

Tigerpete, the "insufficient changing facilities" are because the changing rooms are too small. At WR the teams are forced to get changed across two rooms each. It is well documented at Tigers (and in many Leicester player autobiographies) that there is a "senior" and a "jun...

Doesn't change the fact that the facilities at WR do not meet the minimum criteria for the RWC on a number of key factors.

£26m of grassroots funding compared to £73m of stadium redevelopment is a far greater amount of funding than Tigers are expected to spend on grassroots compared to the forecast £60m cost of redeveloping WR. (£60m figure courtesy of Leicester Mercury). Twickenham may be "functional" but so ...

Firstly, Twickenham is NOT new. One of the 4 stands is new. The others are around 20 years old. (Roughly the same age as the Goldsmiths stand at WR, which is in line for replacement as part of the Tigers redevelopment.) I never said that the direct compensation for the players was equivalent to thei...

DickyP, the decision to play through the AI/6N period is the decision of PRL (ie the Premiership clubs themselves). They never used to play on international weekends until some of the clubs complained that they needed regular cashflow during this period to pay wages etc and therefore demanded that d...

No, but he has touched on a subject he seems to be ill informed about. The RFU are FAR from perfect, but they do have an interest in the game as a whole in England, from very grassroots of the sport up through the professional game and to Test level whereas the Premiership clubs essentially have sel...

Nonsense. They should (and indeed do) invest in the grassroots of the game. The clubs that NEED the investment. They shouldn't (and don't) invest any more than they already do in the professional Premiership businesses as they are commercial enterprises in their own rights. The RFU's current investm...

Given the common complaint on here that Tigers matches get changed for TV and/or that kick off times are rarely 3pm on a Saturday anymore, I find it quite ironic that someone is now complaining that International kickoffs are pretty much all at the same time, around early afternoon on a Saturday...

3. Choice of RWC2015 grounds. This is an optimistic and ridiculous decision with no regard for heritage, and with very significant embarrassment potential. If you want to use 60,000+ seater football grounds in the North, then you needed to drop the Twickenham obsession and start playing Autumn iner...

No, it was also on their test shirts for a while, though it was a bit more subtle than usual sponsor logos as it was on the right breast rather than across the chest.

They did however continue to sponsor training kit etc after their shirt sponsorship ended.

Oh, and the Bachop brothers are the uncles of Aaron & Nathan Mauger (though Nathan only played twice for NZ in non-cap matches). Stephen Bachop's wife Sue Garden-Bachop also represented New Zealand Women between 1989-1991. Their son, Jackson Garden-Bachop made his international debut NZ Secondar...

Good topic! Anyone know if there are many other interesting family link's with different nations like Alesana (Samoa) and Manu (England). Bachop brothers, Samoa & NZ The Bachop brothers are actually far more interesting than that. Graeme Bachop played 31 tests for New Zealand (1989-1995) before...

It isn't the first time they have ever had a sponsor on their match shirts. They were sponsored by Steinlager for a brief period too.