LEADERS Wasps need to beat England's two other top teams in five-days if they are to win the Courage League title unchallenged.

They visit double-hopefuls Leicester today and host Bath on Sunday in an amazing clash of fixtures that the London club's rugby director Nigel Melville called: "Two cup finals in a week".

Former England captain Melville is not looking too far ahead, but said yesterday: "If we can win against the two clubs who are our closest pursuers, we should be champions.

"If we defeat Leicester then lose to Bath we will still be hard to catch. But at Welford Road tomorrow in front of a fanatical 17,000 crowd, all our squad need the game of a lifetime to emerge winners."

Wasps lead the table by six points from both Bath and Leicester. But Leicester, who are unbeaten against Wasps in six Courage League home games, have two matches in hand and Bath have one.

Leicester's Australian World Cup coach Bob Dwyer has studied the league table and said: "If we lose it's going to be very difficult to be champions with eight points to catch up.

"But a win would put us in a very strong position. However, we will need a substantial improvement on our display against Gloucester when we scraped home in the Pilkington Cup semi-final."

Dean Richards returns to the number eight position for Leicester in place of the injured John Wells who he replaced as substitute against Gloucester.

Leicester make six changes, two positional, to that team. Niall Malone takes over from John Liney at full-back and with centre Stuart Potter suffering a shoulder injury, Craig Joiner moves from the wing to cover with Leon Lloyd coming in on the left wing.

Matt Poole has recovered from a knee ligament injury and resumes in the second row for Neil Fletcher.