Rees back to help end Leicester jinx

Rees injured knee ligaments in England's opening Six Nations defeat against Wales on 2 February - and he returns after eight weeks of rehab to help avenge last week's crushing Anglo-Welsh Cup semi-final defeat against Leicester at the Millennium Stadium.

Rees, 23, comes in for Lawrence Dallaglio, who gracefully accepted his one-week ban for punching former England team-mate Julian White at the end of last Saturday's 34-24 defeat.

Open side flanker Rees's mobility may well help Wasps to snatch more possession in the loose at Welford Road today, where Wasps have failed to win in 17 Premiership encounters.

Wigan-born coach Edwards, who grew up in rugby league, admits: "The more I am involved in coaching rugby union, the more I understand the value of having a specialist No7 like Tom Rees in your team.

"We have played without a specialist open-side in recent weeks and it's a boost to have him back in the side."

James Haskell will stay at blind side flanker with John Hart taking over Dallaglio's No8 role.

Edwards, who helped former Wasps boss Warren Gatland engineer the shock Welsh grand slam triumph over the last two months, has shrugged off reports that he is being lined up to coach England if Martin Johnson accepts a job as national team manager.

For now, Edwards says he prefers the dual role of part-time Welsh defence coach and Adams Park supremo.

He said: "I will be staying involved with Wales and I haven't taken any notice of my name being linked with England. I have no control about that kind of thing."

What he does have control over is Wasps hopes of storming into the Premiership play-off positions. He said: "I am not worried about our record in league games at Leicester.

"That's in the past and all I am concerned about is here and now and we need to give a better account of ourselves than we produced in Cardiff last Saturday. While that semi-final was a great game for the fans, I took no consolation from the quality of play because we lost.

"We could have talked about a lack of preparation time and losing Simon Shaw to injury but this club is not about excuses. We have to rectify matters if we are to qualify for the Premiership play-offs."

Harlequins beat Bristol 28-15 to move into the Premiership top four and face Newcastle at home tomorrow with scrum half Danny Care pushing for a place on the England summer tour to New Zealand.

He said: "We're the top team in London at the moment, so it's just nice to be up there.

"But there's a lot of good scrum-halves in England and I will have to just wait and see. There will be a lot of our Harlequins boys pushing for places on the tours at the end of the season.

"We want to stay in the top four but then again it's so tight."

London Irish, who face Bristol at home on Sunday, are to move to a new centre of excellence as a replacement for their Sunbury training ground.

The Exiles have announced plans to raise £6.25m to secure the land for the new rugby centre. Club chairman John Conlan said: "It's been our traditional home for a number of years, but it simply is not big enough to meet our needs. We don't have enough pitches or enough dressing rooms. The alternatives we're looking at are two-and-a-half or even three times as large.

"We're quite advanced in negotiations on several sites not far from Sunbury which are large enough and where we are confident we can secure planning permission required."

Saracens, hurt by their EDF semi-final drubbing by Ospreys and the loss of All Black lock Chris Jack with a long term hand injury, are home to bottom placed Leeds on Sunday.