Leicester Tigers are losing their feral aura and Saracens are favourites for the Aviva Premiership The loss of backs coach Matt O'Connor is quite significant. By all accounts Geordan Murphy, who has moved into a coaching role after retiring from playing, has not has that much to do with the first team yet. Paul Burke has apparently been leading most of the sessions. Director of rugby Richard Cockerill is banned from the early games too, although I cannot see that having too much of an effect on them. Prop Martin Castrogiovanni has also gone. He was a huge character and full of energy within the squad. I do not think he left on particularly good terms in the end, which is a shame, but it is what normally happens at Leicester. That is because the one thing you know about Leicester is that no player is ever bigger than the club. You look at the signings other sides have made. There is the strength of Northampton and Saracens, and then all the new boys at Bath and Gloucester. I just fear as a former Tiger that it will not be their season. By that I mean that I do not think they will be as dominant. They could still end up winning the title, of course, because they have such a good record when it comes to the knockout stages. They will want to get off to a flying start, so they will be pleased they are playing at home for their first match on Sunday afternoon and that they are facing Worcester, who have been tipped by many people to be relegated this season. Leicester have got six players who represented the British and Irish Lions in Australia - Manu Tuilagi, Ben Youngs, Tom Youngs, Dan Cole, Geoff Parling and Tom Croft - and it is always interesting to see how such players shape up after such a tough tour. It is a hard for a coach to know how much to play those returning from summer international action in early season. You obviously want to get off to a good start, but you want to look after the players too. That said, I am not surprised that four of them are starting today, while Ben and Manu, who have both had niggling injuries, are on the bench. Otherwise, who to watch out for in the Leicester side this season? The big players may actually end up being the ones you might not expect to be the star performers, such as David Mélé, who has come over from Perpignan. I am hearing a lot of good things about him. He is a goal-kicking scrum-half, and Leicester may need that because Ryan Lamb (replacing the injured Toby Flood at fly-half today) is not the best goal-kicker in the world. The loss of Flood, with a second concussion in a short period of time, is a blow. And let us hope that it does not become a more serious problem. Mathew Tait is missing today as he recovers from an ankle injury, but I really think this could be the season where we discover whether he can fulfil all that talent that everyone knows he has. He showed some glimpses of brilliance at the end of last season. He pulled out some performances I never thought he had in him at full-back. His problem is that England have so much strength in that position. Ben Foden (Northampton), Mike Brown (Harlequins) and Alex Goode (Saracens) are all ahead of him. The thing is, though, that Tait is quicker than all those three, so there is no reason why he could not play on the wing for England. That is an area where places are not nailed down in the national set-up. Marland Yarde of London Irish and Christian Wade of Wasps are coming through, Brown played there last season and you also have Chris Ashton, but none of them have really got all the all-round skills that Tait has got.