'Any bad blood is now in the past'
Leicester Tigers hooker George Chuter believes any history of bad blood with Ospreys is now "water under the bridge" ahead of the sides' clash tomorrow.
The two giants of European rugby have sparked up a fierce rivalry in the past few years after a number of highly-competitive and controversial encounters.
"We have always had a good rivalry with the Welsh teams that dates back to probably long before I was even born," said 36-year-old Chuter.
"Tigers always toured there during the amateur era, and had some good old barneys with Llanelli, Swansea and the old Neath side so I guess maybe there is some sort of rivalry in that sense.
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"But the games we have played against Ospreys were just so competitive because there was a lot riding on it with Heineken Cup qualification.
"We won at the Liberty one year in the very last minute and that perhaps spurred them on for the next one and it was just a good series of games, some good tough rugby.
"But that was quite a few years ago now. A lot of the squad is new – I don't know if they've even played Ospreys before and I imagine the majority of their squad hasn't played against Leicester before – so I think it's certainly a case of water under the bridge."
There have been a number of controversies in the meetings, most notably when Ospreys fielded 16 men in their 17-12 victory in January 2010.
"There have been some incidents but nothing really untoward," said Chuter, who was among the replacements, as he is tomorrow, during that game,
"I think that (the 16th man fiasco) was one of the things that was blown out of proportion – he was on the field for about 30 seconds. We were outplayed that day so I don't think that made much difference."
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