Jasper Wiese feels Leicester are just a bounce of the ball away from putting a winning run together and making the play-offs for a tilt at retaining their Premiership title.
Leicester, who have dropped into the bottom half of the table after three successive league defeats, welcome Saracens to Welford Road today in a repeat of last June's final.
“They are an incredible team,” said Wiese, South Africa's No.8. “Their record speaks for itself and they have a variety of styles. They are in a very good spot, well clear at the top of the table.
“We know it will be tough but we have only been off by a few per cent this season. We used the break to work on a few tidy-ups. The fight is there and we have to stay on it and stick to what we know.”
The 27-year old Wiese is in his third year at Leicester and was a try scorer in last season's final which Leicester won with a late Freddie Bur ns drop-goal.
“That was an amazing experience,” he said. “Twickenham was at full capacity and we beat a team that had been at the top for a while. It was an unbelievable feeling and I will not forget it any time soon.
“It is a tight battle for third and fourth. As players we are not too worried about the league table: we just want to do our best every weekend and get the result.”
It has been a disrupted season for the Tigers. Head coach Steve Borthwick and defence expert Kevin Sinfield left to join England in December and they will be followed at the end of the season by Borthwick's stand-in replacement, Richard Wigglesworth, and conditioning coach Aled Walters.
“We are focused on this campaign,” said Wiese. “We are very happy for Aled and Wiggy and wish them all the best, but their attention is all on Leicester. You can feel that when they are coaching and noise from outside does not bother us. People can talk but we know what we are about.” Wiese ear ned his callup by South Africa on the strength of his ground gaining perfor mances for Leicester. He missed the heavy defeats at Sale and Newcastle, retur ning for the one-point home defeat to Northampton in the last Premiership round.
“We are on the right path,” said Wiese. “There is not too much that is wrong but we have to get some results. It would be good to beat Saracens, but in our eyes it is another game. If we play at our best, the score will take care of itself.”
Wiese has been watching the Six Nations with interest, little more than six months out from the World Cup which the Springboks will be defending after beating England in the 2019 final.
“Ireland and France was a very entertaining game,” he said. “It was brilliant to see the number one and two teams in the world going at it like that. Ireland are a really good side, so clinical in coming away with points when they get into the opposition 22.
“The breaking point came after 60 minutes when France were still in it. It was a hell of a game to watch and we had close defeats against the two of them back in November.
“It shows how the game evolves every year. When you look at the game between 2015 and 2019, it was much better at the end of that cycle and it will be the same again this year. Every team will need to play better than they did four years ago to have a chance of winning the World Cup.”
