Leicester Tigers Head coach Richard Cockerill believes his side may have a mental edge over bitter local rivals Northampton Saints on Saturday in the Guinness Premiership.
Both teams will be without a number of their stars who are away on England duty although Martin Johnson has sent Lewis Moody back to his club so he may feature.
The Tigers will be without George Chuter, Louis Deacon, Tom Croft, Jordan Crane and Dan Hipkiss.
After an awful start to the season with injuries the Tigers have had to learn to cope with playing without some of their big names.
Cockerill however believes that Saints could be fazed by taking the pitch without some of their most consistent performers like lock Courtney Lawes, fly-half Shane Geraghty and skipper and hooker Dylan Hartley.
Northampton have also lost the services of Prop Brian Mujati and lock Juandre Kruger through suspension.
"Sometimes, when Saints are missing a few, it effects them mentally," he told the Leicester Mercury.
"They are missing Kruger and three tight head props potentially."
"Geraghty and Hartley are both missing and Lawes won't come back to them, apparently."
"Mentally, maybe we have the edge that we are used to playing without some of our guys and they are not. We will see what frame of mind they come with.
"It's going to be a real humdinger of a game and we will have to step up from last week at London Irish because that wasn't good enough."
Cockerill added that as he has some of his stars away on England duty and a lengthy injury list he may have to call upon the services of some young fringe players.
"We have 43 players in the wider squad, including the senior Academy players and I think we have 25 available," he said.
"Callum Green will be involved and Dan Hemingway and Andrew Forsyth potentially. If they are picked to play, they will put their bodies on the line.
"The young players are all good enough, they just need experience at the top level.
"Someone like Ben Pienaar, for example, did exceptionally well last season at times like this and was picked in a European quarter-final ahead of Crane."
Leicester will have Richard Blaze and Ben Kay available after they were released by England and former All Black centre Aaron Mauger is back after spending four weeks out with a groin injury.
Harry Ellis is however still out and is receiving on-going treatment to a knee and Matt Smith is also out.
Samoan winger Alesana Tuilagi has just returned from New Zealand at the start of the week but it is unlikely that he will start.
"Alesana is in the country but is not in good shape physically," said Cockerill.
"He is not up for selection because he is not fit enough to play."
Cockerill again played down speculation linking Leicester Tigers to sacked Australian winger Lote Tuqiri.
"There is nothing to report on Tuqiri at all. That's it," he said.
"Everybody gets linked with us."
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