Ill-feeling and cross words offer enthralling backdrop to final battle

Saracens and Leicester have history – both on and off the pitch – which should make today's match compelling viewing

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Twelve months after banning Brendan Venter from Twickenham "and its environs" – truly, sports administrators are a law unto themselves – the Rugby Football Union will graciously throw open their ornamental gates to the World Cup-winning South African ahead of this afternoon's Aviva Premiership final.

By way of making life even more interesting, they are letting in Richard Cockerill too. There are dozens of reasons to relish this contest, not least because it is a repeat of last year's classic encounter, but the prospect of Venter and Cockerill screaming their heads off within whispering distance of each other is among the best of them.

It was sarcastically suggested to Cockerill, the Leicester coach, early in the week that the governing body might give him a seat in the royal box. "They might put me in a box, but I wouldn't bet on the 'royal' bit," he replied, cheerfully. An hour or so later, the RFU confirmed that no action would be taken against the former England hooker – or, indeed, against his sidekick, the Australian coach Matt O'Connor – for their vocal excesses during the semi-final victory over Northampton at Welford Road a few days previously. Had they shown similar common sense in dealing with Venter last May, the disciplinarians would have saved themselves an awful lot of earache.

There is undoubtedly a "bit going on" between these two clubs. Saracens may have abandoned the agitprop approach to rugby relations that made them the talk of the town last season – by comparison, they have been positively conciliatory this time round – but Edward Griffiths, their chief executive, could not resist summoning the spirit of the spiky 2009-10 campaign by revealing that Leicester had felt "unable" to write a letter in support of Venter when he was being carpeted by the governing body for his own alleged transgressions. "If the roles had been reversed," Griffiths said, a day after Cockerill had been given the all-clear, "we would certainly have written such a letter."

All things considered, then, the temperature ahead of today's winner-takes-all contest is just about right. Both teams feel they have points to prove: Leicester are not at all amused at their failure to beat Saracens during the regular season, either home or away, while their opponents are bristling at criticism of their style of rugby. Given that Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, the Gloucester centre, described them as "horribly boring", their sensitivity is not wholly surprising. "If you look at our last nine league games, we scored 19 tries while conceding eight," said Mark McCall, who took over the daily running of the Saracens operation when Venter returned to his home country for family reasons midway through the campaign. (The South African remains a valued member of the back-room team, spending three days a month at their base in St Albans). "We're obviously doing something right. We're about winning and the statistics indicate we have an understanding of what that takes."

McCall went on to say that "big matches are won by building pressure". This is true, in the common run of things, although Saracens were discovering different ways of winning big matches this time last year – the result of their tight forwards' transparent inability to play a pressure game. Through the introduction of the England prop Matt Stevens, fully rehabilitated after his destructive entanglement with cocaine, and the excellent form of his fellow front-rower, Carlos Nieto, that little issue has been sorted. On current evidence, the challengers have what it takes to match the champions in the darkened recesses.

The champions know it, too, hence the full warpaint and the fighting talk. "Saracens win games, don't they?" Cockerill responded when asked to assess the scale of task. "They were very pragmatic at the start of last season, played a lot more rugby towards the end of it, and have gone back to a more conservative style this time. Like them or not, they're effective. I think we pose more of a threat across the field and it's a dangerous game to try and hold us down physically in an effort to win by three points or six. But this will be a match, definitely."

Cockerill does not have Manu Tuilagi, the nearest thing to a midfield sensation to emerge in England for a very long time, because the England-qualified Samoan knocked himself out of contention by attempting to knock out the Northampton wing Chris Ashton on semi-final day. Matt Smith comes off the wing to fill the gap, with the Argentine international Horacio Agulla stepping into the starting line-up. The holders do not have Louis Deacon, either. The Test lock trained this week, but is not considered fit.

Saracens have no such hassles. Leaving aside their long-term injuries in the back line – Michael Tagicakibau and Kameli Ratuvou, of Fiji, together with the Springbok outside-half Derick Hougaard – they are in "steady as she goes" mode. Apart from the well-documented coin toss between the rival scrum-halves, which went the way of Neil de Kock rather than Richard Wigglesworth, there were next to no decisions to make.

It may well come down to goal-kicking. Young Owen Farrell of Saracens has been a little erratic of late, but as Cockerill remarked of the more experienced Toby Flood: "We have one of those too." There is barely an ironed-out fag paper separating the teams. It could, and should, be compelling.