\n<\/p>\n
What does Air Jordan, a comic book anti-hero, and a set of legendary departing Leicester Tigers players have in common?<\/b><\/p>\n
They have all starred in a blockbuster ‘last dance’.<\/p>\n
It was the theme of basketball legend Michael Jordan’s final glorious season with the Chicago Bulls in 1997-98, and title of the docuseries, external<\/span><\/a> that chronicled his career.<\/p>\n The final film in the Venom trilogy, external<\/span><\/a>, starring Tom Hardy, got the same treatment when it was put up in Hollywood lights last year.<\/p>\n Now Leicester are on English club rugby’s biggest stage at Twickenham on Saturday to try to give a triumphant send-off to a cast of Tigers icons.<\/p>\n It has gone unsaid among players, but it has been acknowledged as “the last dance”.<\/p>\n Ben Youngs, a five-time Premiership winner with Tigers, and Dan Cole, who has four league crowns on his own CV, will both retire at full-time.<\/p>\n They go out together as the two most capped men in English international history.<\/p>\n Their long-time England team-mate Mike Brown – a two-time Premiership winner with Harlequins who has been at Tigers since early 2023 \u2013 will also bow out at the same time.<\/p>\n Captain Julian Montoya will also leave the East Midlands side, as will two-time World Cup-winning South African fly-half Handre Pollard and decorated head coach Michael Cheika.<\/p>\n While Leicester’s Australian boss has played down the significance<\/a> of what will be the final 80 minutes for some of the club’s finest servants, the players themselves have felt the impact.<\/p>\n England scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet, who has been Youngs’ successor for club and country, says it has “100% been an element” that has spurred them on.<\/p>\n “It’s not been something that we have really said out loud much, we don’t say it before games, but we all know,” he told BBC Radio Leicester.<\/a><\/p>\n “We look at each other and go ‘right, it’s their last dance’.<\/p>\n “You have got legends there, two especially, that you properly want to do it for because they deserve it for what they have given to the club and the fans.<\/p>\n “They deserve a proper send-off with a win and a trophy. It is something that has gone unsaid, but I definitely feel part of it and I’m sure a lot of the boys do as well.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n