Poetry rarely features on significant rugby occasions but Leicester will feel that they are in a position to exact poetic justice at Twickenham this afternoon. In front of a world-record crowd of 81,600 for a club match, the Midlanders will hope to do to London Wasps what their great rivals did to them in the Guinness Premiership final of 2005.

On that day, Martin Johnson and Neil Back, Leicester heroes both, were saying farewell to glorious playing careers and were drubbed off Twickenham's turf in front of what was then the record crowd, 66,000, for a Premiership final. Today it is the turn of Lawrence Dallaglio, who has led Wasps for most of the professional era, to say goodbye to the game in general and, in particular, a series that has dominated his career.

“His leadership was his personality and his performance on the pitch,” Johnson, now the England team manager, said, but the former lock does not deal in sentiment. He will watch this season's grand final with an eye on those players fighting for a place in England's starting XV against New Zealand next month, individuals such as Tom Rees and Tom Palmer, Ben Kay and Dan Hipkiss.

Johnson will also be curious to see how Phil Vickery performs after playing no rugby for the past six weeks. Wasps have taken a calculated gamble by naming Vickery at tight-head prop ahead of Pat Barnard, in much the same way as last year when they threw Tom French into their front row for the Heineken Cup final against the same opponents. That worked well; here Vickery's match fitness after recovering from knee ligament damage will receive a close examination from the unsung Boris Stankovich, while Riki Flutey's ability to manage a game from fly half will also be tested.

This final is almost as much about those who are off the pitch as those on it. Flutey wears the No10 shirt because Danny Cipriani, in so many ways the face of the season, cannot. Wasps have made arrangements this week to ensure that their 20-year-old fly half, who suffered a dislocation and fracture to his right ankle a fortnight ago, can attend the final without compromising his injury and believe that Flutey, who occupies first receiver quite frequently anyway, can make up for his absence.

But as an attacking threat, Cipriani has that X-factor and Flutey will feel hot Leicester breath on his neck throughout. His ability to overcome such suffocation will have a direct bearing on the outcome, more so perhaps than Dallaglio's last hurrah.

Then there is Marcelo Loffreda, the Leicester head coach whose future has been under so much scrutiny since he arrived at Welford Road in November. If Leicester go down what could be described as the England route, and dispose of a coach whose players have reached two finals this season, there should be serious recriminations. After this weekend, Loffreda will draw up his recommendations for the future, which will be considered by the club's board. It may be that his job description will be amended and an attack coach added to a staff that already includes two young and ambitious English coaches in Back and Richard Cockerill.

“Marcelo advised me never to predict the future, and he was right,” Cockerill said this week after expressing the opinion three weeks ago that, even if Leicester reached the play-offs, they were not good enough to win the final. “I've had some stick from the boys,” he said.

But when all is said and done, if Leicester can beat Wasps with such élan in the semi-finals of the EDF Energy Cup just over two months ago, there is no reason why they cannot throw the formbook out of the window now.

Form and history say that Wasps will win. They have been one of the most consistent sides in the land since Christmas and Leicester have been the opposite; they have won all but one of their previous professional Twickenham finals, European and domestic, and this season went to Welford Road and won a league game there for the first time, a week after that EDF beating.

They have done that before, of course, conceding more than 40 points against Leicester in 2005 and 2007, then bouncing back to win at Twickenham. “We're very quick learners,” Dallaglio said.

Leicester have named the same XV that beat Gloucester in the play-off at Kingsholm with a late dropped goal from Andy Goode. Who knows, he might do the same again.