We're happy to go with this squad – Richard Cockerill

By mcrowson tigers news martin crowson www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/tigers

Leicester Tigers head coach Richard Cockerill has ruled out any more new arrivals at the club in the build-up to the start of the defence of their Guinness Premiership title at Sale on September 4.

He has also said the coaching staff will do without a specific defence coach and that he, Matt O'Connor (backs coach) and Ben Herring (technical advisor to the breakdown) will cover that area between them.

Tigers are expected to formally announce six new faces in the next week or two, having lost 10 front-line players to other clubs or retirements.

Former Wasps fly-half Jeremy Staunton is set to be the last in a line of new faces which includes hooker Joe Duffey (Nottingham), centres Billy Twelvetrees (Bedford) and Anthony Allen (Gloucester), second row Geoff Parling (Newcastle) and scrum-half James Grindal (Newcastle).

Cockerill says that he is pleased with the squad that assembled for pre-season training at the start of last week and that he will not be looking for anyone else. "We are done with people coming and going," he said.

"There will be no more significant arrivals.

"We are happy with the signings we have got."

Last season's Guinness Premiership head coach of the year defended the club's decision to bring in a series of relatively low-key signings, despite them losing the likes of Martin Corry, Julien Dupuy and Tom Varndell.

"We are not a club that signs big names," he said.

"We do our research and like to get the right players in for the right slots."

Plenty of eyebrows were raised in the past when players such as Marcos Ayerza and Martin Castrogiovanni were recruited from relative obscurity to fill crucial roles in the front row.

Three years later, they are two of the first names on the team sheet.

Cockerill said: "There is no doubt that the likes of Corry, Dupuy and Ben Kayser are quality players and have done some fantastic things for us.

"But we will carry on as we always do.

"In the last five years we have lost Neil Back, Martin Johnson, Graham Rowntree, Shane Jennings and Leo Cullen and so on.

"People have come and gone and we get on with it.

"People at this club want to fill those holes and they come in and do a good job."

Cockerill and O'Connor took control of coaching the defence last season after former Bulls man John McFarland came and went within two months under Heyneke Meyer's regime.

Tigers conceded an average of just 15 points a game in the final 12 matches of the year and Cockerill says he sees no reason to change the formula.

"We are not going to have a defence coach because we don't feel we need one," he said.

"Ben Herring has joined the coaching staff to concentrate on the breakdown and there will obviously be areas of defence that he will advise us on."