Bristol's chairman Malcolm Pearce issued a bold pre-season warning to English rugby's dominant force Leicester yesterday, insisting that his "unsexy" club were poised to challenge the Tigers' four-year domestic supremacy.

Pearce, who has personally invested more than £5m since rescuing Bristol four seasons ago, predicted the Shoguns would be "the best club in the country" within five years and was seeking a top three Zurich Premiership finish this season under the new head coach Peter Thorburn, the former New Zealand selector.

"There are a number of teams with the chance to challenge Leicester and there's no reason it can't be us," said Pearce, suggesting the unsettling summer departures of the coach Dean Ryan and the former England manager Jack Rowell to their west country rivals Gloucester and Bath respectively might prove to be a blessing in disguise.

"Thorburn's a magic man. I think he's exceptional and the players all say he's a bit special. Life's too short to be angry. I think Dean will make an excellent number two at Gloucester and it remains to be seen what Jack will achieve at Bath.

"When Dean was suspended [for criticising a referee] last season we took a hell of a knock. It did nothing for morale, the whole feeling was we were an unsexy club who were probably being treated harshly. We put our heads down, got depressed about it and things went a little bit awry."

Pearce also hopes that his club will break even this year and, always assuming crowds increase, hinted that Bristol would seek to move to a bigger ground when their lease at the Memorial Stadium expires in 2004: "We will move unless we can renegotiate a better deal than we have at the moment."

· The Springbok captain Corne Krige has been ruled out of rugby for between six and eight weeks after suffering a sternum injury in the Tri-nations match against Australia on Saturday. Krige left the field after 52 minutes as South Africa beat the Wallabies 33-31. The injury rules the flanker out of the bulk of the Currie Cup.