Leicester coach Richard Cockerill has revealed he is unlikely to risk Ireland winger Geordan Murphy at the weekend ahead of the visit of England to Croke Park on Saturday week.
The coach has also confirmed that none of the Tigers players named in England's team to start against Ireland will play a full Guinness Premiership game this weekend.
Only Julian White is under consideration for a start against Worcester at Sixways after spending the last two weekends on the bench for England. The likes of Martin Corry, Louis Deacon and George Chuter will only feature among the replacements, if at all.
Tensions between English Premierhsip clubs and international unions have risen since the Six Nations began, with the latter keen to keep their players fit for the annual northern hemisphere showpiece. Clubs, however, say they cannot afford to let their leading players sit-out games just so they remain injury free for internationals.
Scotland fell foul of the row yesterday when three of their players were prevented from training with the international squad yesterday. The SRU said it was denied the services of Jim Hamilton, Sean Lamont and Rory Lawson by English club rugby's representative Premier Rugby Limited.
Leicester stance, however, and the fact that Newcastle Falcons have omitted Jonny Wilkinson from their weekend squad, will give the unions some hope of a change of heart from clubs.
"From a Leicester point of view we want to look after our best players because we have big games coming up after the Six Nations and we want them to be as fresh as possible," Cockerill said.
Cockerill insisted Leicester's decision was not a direct response to the Twickenham request that Premiership clubs rest their senior England players.
"We probably won't play our Italian forward (Martin Castrogiovanni) and we probably won't play our Irish back (Murphy) either. Our strategy is that we know we will lose these players for periods of time and we have built a strength of squad to deal with that. Other clubs may not have that luxury."
The former Test hooker was frustrated that England director of rugby Rob Andrew's request implied the Premiership clubs do not manage their players carefully enough.
He added: "We don't over-play our players and I don't think any other clubs do. The welfare of our players comes first.
"You only have to look back to the autumn when Julian White was played four games on the trot (by England) and we had to rest him for three weeks after that.
"We had the players' interests first. England played him to near exhaustion.
"It is not just England players we look after, we look after all our international players across the board."
