Manu Tuilagi’s Christmas dinner contained a serious, serious amount of meat

There are upsides to being out injured as a rugby player.

You can indulge at the dinner table and loosen the belt a notch. Just a notch, mind. The hard work starts when you get back to the gym, but Christmas comes but once a year. Manu Tuilagi is back in the mix for Leicester Tigers and getting up to speed with events. He copped successive yellow cards in the Champions Cup games against Munster but had a better going of it in the return tie, which Tigers won 18-16. Owen Williams, who kicked the winning penalty at Welford Road, raved about Tuilagi's influence to The Leicester Mercury. He said:

"Everyone knows the threat Manu possesses. He is an outstanding player and we try to get him the ball as much as we can."

Mercury reporter Martin Crowson caught up with the England centre for a chat ahead of Tigers' round of festive fixtures. With Tuilagi now getting back to full fitness, he may not be able to indulge quite as much as he did for his last Christmas dinner. https://twitter.com/martin_crowson/status/811221804765376513 That pig never stood a chance. Not with this gang around... https://youtu.be/-Eoty9ksxN0 While backs rarely consume the same amount of calories as their team-mates that pack down for the nitty-gritty up front, they do take on-board 3,000 calories on days when they are trying to bulk up [usually the day before heavy gym sessions]. Taking down a fair share of a 52kg [115lbs] roasted pig would probably account for most of that calories target.