THEY may have retired from England duty, but Martin Johnson and Neil Back will be going flat out to maintain Leicester's improvement when they visit Newcastle Falcons tomorrow (3pm).

The Tigers suffered a poor start to the season while supplying seven forwards to the World Cup effort, but they have won their last three Premiership games to move level with the Falcons in eighth place on 38 points.

With the Six Nations Championship over, Leicester are also able to recall Irish winger Geordan Murphy, plus England forwards Ben Kay, Julian White and Martin Corry, although they can afford to leave Kay on the bench with Louis Deacon partnering Johnson at lock.

"They are back to full strength, so we expect a feisty match in more ways than one," said Newcastle's Director of Rugby Rob Andrew, who admitted it has been a difficult week for the club.

Alongside the death of Soa Otuvaka came news that young flanker Ben Woods, a Durham University graduate, had broken a leg in three places playing for the Development XV against Northampton on Monday.

"It has hit the players hard, but they are now fully focused on Sunday's game," said Andrew, although he did add: "In some ways Soa's benefit game next Saturday is more important even than the Powergen Cup final.

"I would like to ask everybody to dig deep and come to Kingston Park next week for the 6.30 kick-off for a game which is a testament to Soa and our love and respect for him."

Otuvaka left a widow and children aged three and one, and his death has had the greatest impact on his close friend Epi Taione, who may not even be on the bench tomorrow.

Mark Andrews will be among the replacements and will feature at some stage after recovering from injury.

Stuart Grimes is back from Scotland duty to start alongside Garath Archer, while Hall Charlton returns at scrum half and Marius Hurter comes in for Micky Ward.

While Newcastle can still qualify for the Heineken Cup by winning the Powergen, Leicester need to make sure they get in via the Zurich Wildcard event. That will be contested by the four highest finishers in the Premiership who have not already qualified for the premier European event.

Martin Johnson will be back at Kingston Park next week for the benefit match, along with his Leicester teammates and Samoan World Cup brothers Henry and Freddie Tuilagi.

There now seems to be no chance of Jonny Wilkinson playing in the match, thereby virtually ruling him out of the cup final at Twickenham the following week.

But after taking on a role as the Falcons' defensive coach recently, he will also coach the Global Chiefs, for whom other recent recruits are Rugby League stars Lesley Vainikolo and Tevita Vaikona of Bradford Bulls.

There will be a half-time game of tag rugby featuring Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards, boxer Glenn McCrory, Rob Andrew and Tony Underwood.

Tickets for both the benefit match and the cup final can be collected tomorrow or are available on the ticket hotline (0870 085 6060).

The hotline deadline for the final is April 8, with any requests after that needing to go through Ticketmaster on 0870 902 0000.

Newcastle have so far sold over 7,800 tickets for Twickenham and filled over 50 coaches at a subsidised cost of £10 a head.

* Rumours that Darlington Mowden Park's link with Newcastle Falcons is about to be severed have been denied by chairman John Parkinson.

"We agreed this year would be a bedding-in period and we would review the relationship at the end of the season," he said.

"The main problem has been the number of injuries suffered by both clubs. We should have ignored the block registration of the Newcastle Academy players and had a bigger Mowden squad."

It is believed the long-serving Richard Arnold may be offered a new role by the Falcons, but Mowden would still be interested in having him as a player-coach.

Arnold has provided the biggest benefit of their Newcastle link, with none of the Academy players making more than a handful of appearances.

Most of them, including the impressive Toby Flood, have been injured at some stage and the Falcons have sometimes been reluctant to release them for Mowden duty when they have their own Development XV fixtures to fulfil.

With all their locks injured, Mowden have managed to secure the services of Sean Tomes for today's match at Blaydon, the club he originally joined this season before being told to switch by the Falcons.

Mowden tried to re-sign veteran Steve Sanderson, but the RFU would not allow it as he is registered with Seaham and the deadline has passed.

Jon Dye is out for the season with medial ligament damage, while Ian Robinson's neck problem rules him out indefinitely and flanker Tony Irwin has been advised to have shoulder and chest problems X-rayed.

Arnold has had the stitches out of his face, but is not yet ready to play, while Mark Bedworth has a calf problem and centre Martyn Bray failed to turn up for last week's game at Liverpool. He has not been seen since, so it is hoped that Suka Hufanga will be fit to play at centre.

Mowden are down to the bare bones and have named another academy boy, Eni Gisende, at blind side and prop Ian Keeligan at lock.

Darlington have hooker Rob Goddard and winger Frankie Coulson unavailable for the trip to Waterloo, so Dan Oselton and Mark Butler come in. Dan Miller and Paul Shepherd start at prop.