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James Lowe: England win can inspire Tigers against Leinster

James Lowe scored two tries when Ireland lost to England
James Lowe scored two tries when Ireland lost to England

James Lowe reckons Leicester Tigers' England contingent will be able to draw inspiration from their victory against Ireland ahead of Saturday's Investec Champions Cup clash with Leinster.

Three Tigers forwards, Dan Cole, George Martin and Ollie Chessum, started England's 23-22 win at Twickenham last month that ended Ireland's back-to-back Grand Slam hopes.

Two more, Joe Heyes and Freddie Steward, were in the championship squad and the Premiership side will arrive to the Aviva Stadium for a last-16 tie as heavy underdogs, much like Steve Borthwick's outfit ahead of the Six Nations meeting.

"They stopped us winning the Grand Slam, that was the unfortunate thing," said winger Lowe when asked if their opponents may take something from the London game, in which he scored two tries.

"Look, in terms of that game, we were put under an immense amount of pressure and England had their backs against the wall after the week before [a loss to Scotland] and they stepped up and managed to topple us over so fair play to them.

"There are some English internationals in this Leicester side who are going to be probably playing the same tune as what they were in the week leading up to our Test match.

James Lowe scored a try in Friday's URC victory over Bulls

"It's about us getting our stuff right.

"We understand the pressure that comes in these knock-out style games, international-level games we play and we know if we do our job to the best of our ability, there's going to be opportunities to exploit."

New Zealand native Lowe, who has won 31 caps under Andy Farrell since making his international debut in 2020, also revealed details of the injury that kept him out of action after the World Cup in October until last January.

James Lowe (c) in action against South Africa at the World Cup

"I got a little bit of a nasty one, I tore the muscles under my foot. During the World Cup, I was just hanging on," he told RTE Sport.

"I trained every single session during the World Cup and played every single game that I could.

"It needed time, it needed a bit of TLC, a bit of love, a bit of sun. I rehabbed the absolute b******s out of that to get myself back into a position to play at the highest level and I got that opportunity.

"My body's in great shape at the moment, I'm feeling good.

"The boys around me are giving me such confidence to be able to do what I like to do on the rugby field, that's run around and hit people if I need to and run away from them when I can.

"I'm happy and healthy and ready to kick on for the rest of the season."

James Lowe played his second Leinster game of the season in the 27-10 pool win over Tigers

The rest of the season starts on Saturday evening with yet another meeting with the Tigers.

The sides met as recently as round four of the pool stages in January and also faced off in last season's quarter-final.

The aggregate score from the two games is 82-34 but Lowe insists there is no danger of Leinster, last champions in 2018, taking their eye off the Tigers.

"Complacency's a killer," he said. "There is none of that in this camp."

Watch Leinster v Leicester in the Champions Cup on Saturday from 7.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

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