Leicester Tigers v London Irish

Round 8 of the premiership is almost upon us and on Bonfire Night the Tigers will be hosting London Irish at Welford road, which is yet another 'must-win' match if Leicester are to mount a serious challenge for a top 4 spot this year.

To say we have gotten off to a rotten start is something of an understatement. Now there have been numerous reasons around the RWC and injuries which have been covered in some detail already in other posts, but with our (more or less) first choice players back and fit we have started to perform better and have notched up our first win in the AP since scraping past Newcastle at the death.

London Irish currently sitting at 6th have had an indifferent start to the year and have had some good wins, but also lost a couple that maybe they should have won but are not in any immediate danger.

I am reasonably confident that we have the firepower to produce a win at home with a strong squad, but what's the prospect of picking up that all important bonus point win? For Tigers this is a big challenge as I'm sure we will notch up wins but those BP's are gold plated for us at the moment. We NEED them to put us in contention at the back end of the season when no doubt we will be stripped of our Internationals yet again.

If Tigers were to pick up the full 5pts there are only 3 teams we can jump ahead of, Exeter on 16pts, Gloucester on 15pts and Saints are on 14pts.

Interestingly the Chiefs are hosting Glaws this weekend too. A hard one to call this as Chiefs are quite strong at home and I think may edge this one in a close game. Glaws to pick up a LBP. Saints are away to Wasps, but I think they are going rack up the win by more than 7, but not a BP win.

That means that the bottom half of the table should look something like this.....

7. Exeter Chiefs 20pts.
8. Northampton Saints 18pts.
9. Leicester Tigers 17pts (if... and I mean IF we can get a BP win).
10. Gloucester 16pts.
11. Worcester 14pts.
12. Newcastle 6pts.

Let the discussion begin........

The interview with Cockers in the Mercury casts doubt on Twelvetrees (should be back by the HEC games) fitness so it looks unlikely that he will be playing on Saturday. I'd expect a team of;

Ayerza, Chuter, Cole
Skivington, Parling
Croft, Waldrom, Salvi
Harrison, Flood
Smith, Agulla
Tuilagi, Murphy, Hamilton

Subs; Stanko, Youngs, Castro, Deacon (recovering from flu), Woods, Young, Staunton, Morris.

Then again I would have thought there would have been a temptation to start with Deacon and have the place on the bench taken by one of Mafi or Slater who would offer a much more dynamic option should Tigers need to add something extra later in the game. Smith and Agulla coped well with Sale's big centres but now there is more of a challenge as although, Hape would struggle to escape from a paper bag the rest of the LI backline offers both power and pace.

Just had a look on the Irish website to see if their team is up yet but I know it is a bit early, should be out tomorrow according to their site.

Noted that Dave Pearson is reffing the game, always a favourite at Welford Rd!

We don't tend to name our team until Friday lunchtime this season.

It'll be named at the same time as Tigers' team will be then. Care to have a guess on the side Ozzy? Any players definitley missing for the Exiles?

Dave Pearson is a very good ref, should allow a real contest at the breakdown and he likes his scrums doen proper.

Sam when are Skirving, Tait, Youngs and Allan meant to be back playing?! I was so excited to see Tait signing for the Tigers but he just seems eternally crocked!

Dermody, Casey, Hala'ufia, Gray and JJ are definite non starters for us.

Hard to call what the team will be to be honest. Definite starters I would say are Paice, Kennedy, Danaher and Gibson in the pack, and Bowden, Armitage, Ojo and Homer in the backs.

Elsewhere Booth may shuffle the deck.

Sam when are Skirving, Tait, Youngs and Allan meant to be back playing?!

Skirving? Dunno I thought he was still playing for Bath. Skivington is back and playing, he played vs Sale but may make way for the return of Louis Deacon (it's raining in Leicestershire at the moment, que the rolling mauls). Tait is out until December, Youngs should be back next weel and Allen is out until January having sliced open an artery in his thumb whilst laying some flooring in his kitchen.

London Irish team to Leicester Tigers:
15. Tom Homer; 14.Topsy Ojo*; 13. Steven Shingler; 12.Shontayne Hape*; 11.Sailosi Tagicakibau*;10. Dan Bowden (Captain); 9. Ross Samson; 1.Alex Corbisiero*; 2. David Paice*; 3.Paulica Ion*; 4. James Sandford; 5. Bryn Evans*; 6. Declan Danaher; 7.Jamie Gibson; 8. Jebb Sinclair*

Replacements: 16. James Buckland; 17. Max Lahiff; 18.Faan Rautenbach*; 19. Matt Garvey; 20. Richard Thorpe; 21. Adam Thompstone; 22. Adrian Jarvis; 23.Darren Allinson

*Denotes International

Oops, somehow got mixed up with Kitchener...

15 Geordan Murphy (c),14 Scott Hamilton,13 Horacio Agulla,12 Matt Smith
11 Alesana Tuilagi,10 Toby Flood,9 Sam Harrison
1 Marcos Ayerza,2 George Chuter,3 Martin Castrogiovanni,4 Louis Deacon,5 Geoff Parling,6 Tom Croft,7 Julian Salvi,8 Thomas Waldrom

Replacements
16 Tom Youngs,17 Boris Stankovich,18 Dan Cole,19 George Skivington,20 Ed Slater,21 James Grindal,22 Jeremy Staunton,23 Niall Morris


Ben Youngs, Manu Tuilagi, Mathew Tait, Anthony Allen and Billy Twelvetrees are unavailable due to injury and scrum-half Micky Young played an hour of Monday's Development XV match as he works his way back from a calf problem.

Slightly surprised to see Skivington and Slater on the bench rather than Mafi having a spot..

Kitchener is taking time to adjust. Tigers have a famously complicated lineout and with the return of Parling, Slater's excellent form, Skivington on the books and Deacon back from the RWC Kitchener is struggling to make his presence felt. It did take Skivington 3 months to settle in to the Tigers second row and Slater all of last season to adapt.

Your front 8 could really batter us. a lot more powerful.
but the backline lacks some spark and is more hard running.

be happy with a bonus point TBH, hopefully Homers boot will keep us in reach throughout. Good to see Tagicakibau back.

Agulla added some unexpected spark last weekend, he suprised many by bouncing through the Sale centres (who are both massive) on a couple of occasions and Tuilagi and Murphy will add the usual impetus to the attack. Smith and Agulla may lack go forward but they should defend ok. Relying on the pack again, get the ball too touch and try to keep the Exiles backline out of the game.

Agulla is a vastly under-rated player. He is quick, has good feet, tackles well above his weight and is incredibly strong. Watching the way he bounces tacklers off, I reckon Danny Hipkiss passed on the mantle of pinball wizard.

I would have Agulla in my full strength line-up - though on the wing.

Have to say Tuilangi was looking a real liability last weekend. for every big run there was a knock on. For a massive bloke he loses the ball far too often!

Sometimes I wonder what Tigers would have been like had they signed Strettle, Camacho or some other speedy elusive winger...

LT I am also a fan of Horacio he really is an excellent little player, didn't expect him to get any change out of the two units that Sale deployed in the centres though. Was very impressed with how he bounced round players who were 3 stone plus his weight, it's not like he could run round them it was all to do with exceptional balance, a great hand off and pace.

Yappy the first half saw Alesana at his worst but in the second half he came alive and played pretty well. The big man has always been hit or miss but he was the AP top scorer last season and does tend to find his way to the try line. Incidentally Camacho is very similar in his style of play to Agulla and Tigers did bid for Strettle but couldn't secure his signature because of having very little wage cap in which to fit him in, well if you believe the rumours at the time anyway. Tigers have always tended to have speed on the wing but with the likes of the Underwoods, Healey, Lloyd and Varndell but Cockers seems to prefer players with more rounded skill sets, Varndell was shipped out sharpish because being a quick try scorer isn't enough.

Indeed there's a young winger coming through that looks to be the next Varndell style speedster name of Tahir El Mahdi, look out for him in a couple of years as he looked electric in the AP sevens event despite playing for a team that were taking a hiding.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Underwoods, Healey, Lloyd

Less so Leon Lloyd, but oh to have a player of the quality of either Underwood or Healey available. Tony and Oz were quick and skillfull, but Rory who was more one-dimensional (but did that ever so well) wouldn't half fit into the current team well.

I was hoping Tait would slot in as the wing wizard and he may well do should he ever be fully fit again. We certainly have missed that mecurial master out wide for a while the backline did look very short of sparkle when both Geordan and Manu were out the side. Twelvetrees adds a bit but he doesn't bring the little bit of brilliance every week like the other two.

Austin Healey was in a league of his own when it came to magic; he had the speed, the feet, the vision and the ball skills to make it all happen. Not many players will be able to cover the positions he did in the professional era when so much specialisation is expected. If Cockerill goes to England I'd hope he was brought into the coaching team.

I think Tait has more to offer at FB than on the wing - an ideal replacement for Geordan (hopefully)

Replacement for Geordan long term but offering some serious spark from the wing in the short term. Geordan and Tait bursting through the line with quick feet and good angles. Combine that with the battering ram approaches of the Tuilagi brothers and that's a good arsenal for the half backs to choose from.

Interesting team selection from Toby, not necessarily what I would have picked, but I am intrigued to see how one or two of the guys go, and there is no tougher way to test their mettle than the Tiggers at Welford.

Individual battles that I am looking forward to are

Corbs vs. Castro in the scrum

Bowden vs. Flood controlling the game

Ojo vs. Tuilagi out wide (the rapier v the broadsword).

Roll on 3 o'clock!!!

anyone watching the game? Didnt croft lose it backwards? is barnes being his usual self?

pfffffffffffffffft!

Tigers were ultimately lucky to get a draw with the bad decision. great comeback by Irish.

How did Leicester throw that?! Such dominance, but poor execution. Irish took pretty much every scrap they were given.

And Barnes is a fool. The ball clearly went backwards/flat off a L.Irish knee before Agulla recovered it to score. Croft never knocked it on.

Leicester need to find their accuracy and fast!

maverickmak wrote:How did Leicester throw that?! Such dominance, but poor execution. Irish took pretty much every scrap they were given.

And Barnes is a fool. The ball clearly went backwards/flat off a L.Irish knee before Agulla recovered it to score. Croft never knocked it on.

Leicester need to find their accuracy and fast!

I thought Croft's reaction told a different story?

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:

maverickmak wrote:How did Leicester throw that?! Such dominance, but poor execution. Irish took pretty much every scrap they were given.

And Barnes is a fool. The ball clearly went backwards/flat off a L.Irish knee before Agulla recovered it to score. Croft never knocked it on.

Leicester need to find their accuracy and fast!

I thought Croft's reaction told a different story?

But the video didn't...

maverickmak wrote:

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:

maverickmak wrote:How did Leicester throw that?! Such dominance, but poor execution. Irish took pretty much every scrap they were given.

And Barnes is a fool. The ball clearly went backwards/flat off a L.Irish knee before Agulla recovered it to score. Croft never knocked it on.

Leicester need to find their accuracy and fast!

I thought Croft's reaction told a different story?

But the video didn't...

Ok but the 'unstoppable march up the league now the internationals have returned' has stalled and Tigers need to up their game for the next HC game......

Tigers pack is fine. They are working hard and producing good ball. The backs are struggling to make an impact with it. Probably down to the centres, or rather lack of them. Oh how I would kill for Allen, Twelvetrees and/or Manu...

Man if we had a pack we'd be serious contenders!!! To come back from 7-24 down at Welford Road, and with our forwards getting dominated in the set piece is one hell of an effort.

Happy with that result!!!

As you should be. Irish showed some real dog. Your backs did more with the limited ball they got than ours managed with the majority despite our clearly superior pack.

Still can't quite believe we threw it away.

Ozzy3213 wrote:Man if we had a pack we'd be serious contenders!!! To come back from 7-24 down at Welford Road, and with our forwards getting dominated in the set piece is one hell of an effort.

Happy with that result!!!

The Irish deserved that draw with their second half performance. Their forwards pretty much killed off their bogeys in the set piece.

Great performance.

Tigers got it wrong by deciding too late to go for the BP. And TF's boot was rubbish.

Overall - very fair.

And I agree with the above - Agulla's try was perfectly valid. But that's Barnes for you...

Portnoy wrote:

Ozzy3213 wrote:Man if we had a pack we'd be serious contenders!!! To come back from 7-24 down at Welford Road, and with our forwards getting dominated in the set piece is one hell of an effort.

Happy with that result!!!

The Irish deserved that draw with their second half performance. Their forwards pretty much killed off their bogeys in the set piece.

Great performance.

Tigers got it wrong by deciding too late to go for the BP. And TF's boot was rubbish.

Overall - very fair.

And I agree with the above - Agulla's try was perfectly valid. But that's Barnes for you...

I thinnk that draw can more be blamed on a total lack of cutting edge outside Flood and then deciding to bring on some of the poorest backs replacements in the prem for no apparent reason. Depressing to watch Tigers fail uttelyy with ball in hand. You desperately need better centres and some spark in the back 3.

What with four centres on the sick-bed (with the HEC next week) I guess that's the best the Tigers could muster what with the wage cap.

But that is a fading back three, I'd agree.

Good crowd though.

And did Cockers make the team stay outside to face the crowd's opprobrium?

I certainly hope that he borrowed Fergie's hair dryer now that he's no doubt received a silver one today.

Only just go on following yesterdays disappointment, so will start with a question then some comments.

Question
Who the heck scored tigers second try? The scoreboard gave it to Croft, as do online sources this morning. From my view (Row E directly in front) the ball appeared to be kicked from Croft's hand as he tried tostretch and ground it. Did it go backwards and thus agulla scored - or are my eyes failing me?


Comments
How the hell did we fail to win that? From a position of absolute dominance with 16 minutes to go it all fell apart. That was a game that Tigers threw away. Not the first time same happened against Perpignan last year.

Credit to London Irish, amazing defence and resiliance.

Toby Flood - that bloody stutter has re-appeared in his kicking action. First happened after 6 nations. Dave Alred seems to be screwing him up.

James Grindal - dreadfull passing. First one (though it was at other end of pitch so I cannot be positive) had a large part to play in the charge down try. (I love how cruel the rugby ball can be. As was seen later when Tigers charged down - usually those go dead). Second one was the last pass of the game for the drop goal.

Portnoy - crowd were stunned more than anything. There were about 30 LI fans around me who had left at 24-17 to "beat the rush" so all that was left in the Goldsmiths stand were tigers fans shaking their heads in shock.

The all was kneed from Croft's hand by an Irish player and it went backwards (for Croft) and Agulla scored it. Stuart Barnes was mouthing off in commentary that Croft had "lost control" but to me it never went forward so no problem. The AR said it didn't go forward and he was probably in the best position to see for sure.

HammerofThunor wrote:The all was kneed from Croft's hand by an Irish player and it went backwards (for Croft) and Agulla scored it. Stuart Barnes was mouthing off in commentary that Croft had "lost control" but to me it never went forward so no problem. The AR said it didn't go forward and he was probably in the best position to see for sure.

it really does pee me off how wrong barnes gets it sometimes! Wish they'd sack him from sky!

nathan wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:The all was kneed from Croft's hand by an Irish player and it went backwards (for Croft) and Agulla scored it. Stuart Barnes was mouthing off in commentary that Croft had "lost control" but to me it never went forward so no problem. The AR said it didn't go forward and he was probably in the best position to see for sure.

it really does pee me off how wrong barnes gets it sometimes! Wish they'd sack him from sky!

I agree there was no problem with the try, except Barnesy not really watching the replay. When the ball was kneed from Croft, it went back towards Leicester, so no knock on. Agulla was standing in the right place, picked it up and touched it down.

Bigger picture question is Leicester really did domnate and I am still wondering why they didn't score much more and how they gave it up. One of those strange matches. Some of my Leicester mates kept telling me its because their centres aren't their best combination. But there are finishers across the pitch for Tigers, so something else was not clicking. Can't put my finger on it though.

Body positions when taking contact looked poor across the backs. Much like Eng at their worst just hitting it up with little dynamism then hitting the deck and not laying the ball back too well. Fine to have a couple of players doing this but when 12, 13 and 14 try it constantly and your 11 and 15 are a bit slow and possibly over the hill in attack it really makes breaking a well organised defence difficult.

Their domination up front was ultimately their downfall to be honest. After they got the penalty try, they seemed to think they would just get tries through their pack, and failed to realise their backs on a number of occasions when they would have had numbers over with our backs having been sucked in to help out the forwards around the contact area.

Ozzy3213 wrote:Their domination up front was ultimately their downfall to be honest. After they got the penalty try, they seemed to think they would just get tries through their pack, and failed to realise their backs on a number of occasions when they would have had numbers over with our backs having been sucked in to help out the forwards around the contact area.

Plus Grindal the pillock...

The point is Portnoy, had Tigers used their forward dominance to release their backs at the right time, they could and probably would have been 25-30 points ahead at half time and the game would have been over rendering the fact that Grindal got charged down as an irrelevance.

It's easy to blame one person for one specific incident, but it skirts over the fact that as a team Tigers took the wrong options again and again in the belief that their pack would win them the game.

I know. I referred to the wrong options earlier in this post.

Grindal is an expensive liability nonetheless. (rpt: Pillock).

I have no qualms about losing points when first (available) teams is against the ditto. No problem at all.

Tigers let their game go and LI upped theirs.

I salute the Oirish. But on the part of my team: somehow, somewhere but most importantly very soon, Cockerill will have to get his/the team's A into G. Pronto.

I suspect that even now, the Tigers' board will be scrutinising this result very closely. No excuses - we had a full team out and fell yet again.

I can't recall a worse home run ever. And obviously never in the pro era.

Portnoy wrote:Agulla's try was perfectly valid. But that's Barnes for you...

Agree. Perfect try. What'll happen now is people watching on TV will assume he's right and cause confusion in future games.

In the wake of the RWC I havent been able to follow the Avivia premiership due to my location, but was gob smacked to see this result and the position of the Tigers in the league!!! WTF is happening here... Ok Saffer-cens have a good squad and most were not involved down in NZ but how the hell did Leicester only manage a 24 point draw at home? (dont have access to any highlights of the game)

latino-flanker wrote:In the wake of the RWC I havent been able to follow the Avivia premiership due to my location, but was gob smacked to see this result and the position of the Tigers in the league!!! WTF is happening here... Ok Saffer-cens have a good squad and most were not involved down in NZ but how the hell did Leicester only manage a 24 point draw at home? (dont have access to any highlights of the game)

I guess if you read through some of the previous posts you will get a flavour of what went on.

Tigers suffered horribly to the start of the season with the loss of so many players to the RWC and injuries and our results showed that (1 win from 6 in the AP).

Whilst we had more or less our first choice pack out there for London Irish it was certainly not our best back line... (Manu, Youngs, Tait, Allen, Ford, Twelvetrees etc. all out injured or being rested).

This lead to Tigers trying to smash it through the pack, lots of route 1 ball, which to be fair seemed to working when we got the penalty try, but it also meant that we started to turn down some good backs opportunities and a few overlaps went ignored for the safety of the pack. There were also a few very kickable chances were declined to go for the corners (looking for that bonus point!).

But with a 24-7 lead and with 10(ish) on the clock I think Tigers relaxed thinking this was in the bag. Big mistake... especially from the "come back" Kings... the amount of times we have come back in the last 5 to win a game you'd think they would have known better.

But LI fought it out to the final whistle and deserved their draw. Should we have won? Easily I'm afraid I have to say but we threw it away with some poor game management.


Finally... the try:

When I saw Croft reach for the line I thought LI had forced the ball loose, i.e. Croft lost control so it is a technical knock on. I would go as far as to say that how many times in the AP do you see a defending player get a hand in and force the ball loose and the ref gives it as a knock on automatically?

But when you see the replay you can clearly see that Croft IS in control and the LI players knee comes into contact and forces the ball backwards. Play on. And Agulla was in the right place to pick it up and score. Good call by the TMO.

All of Stuart Barnes diatribes are now available in his spoken word CD "Stuart Barnes: Talking Bollox"

And in his latest book "Why I hate Tigers so much!"

Now available in all good retail stores & outlets.

On a personal note:

I was in the Crumbie a few seasons back when we were playing LI in the playoffs and Stuart Barnes (there commenting for SKY as usual) had predicted LI would thrash us.

Tigers put LI to the sword that day and it was amazing to hear the crowd spontainiously burst into "Are you watching Stuart Barnes?"

And I sang my little lungs out (he was only a few rows behind me!) and to this day I still think it is the only time I have heard the crowd sing anything other than TIGERS!

My memory also is telling me this was the day Barnes got hit by the ball (live on TV) from a Tigers clearance kick, knocking him and his coffee over, much to the hoots of delight and laughter from the crowd?

Metal Tiger wrote:On a personal note:

I was in the Crumbie a few seasons back when we were playing LI in the playoffs and Stuart Barnes (there commenting for SKY as usual) had predicted LI would thrash us.

Tigers put LI to the sword that day and it was amazing to hear the crowd spontainiously burst into "Are you watching Stuart Barnes?"

And I sang my little lungs out (he was only a few rows behind me!) and to this day I still think it is the only time I have heard the crowd sing anything other than TIGERS!

My memory also is telling me this was the day Barnes got hit by the ball (live on TV) from a Tigers clearance kick, knocking him and his coffee over, much to the hoots of delight and laughter from the crowd?

I don't want to tarnish your memory MT - but I remember this chant going up in this Match against Sale( http://www.leicestertigers.com/rugby/2068.php ) . Barnes had predicted an easy win for Sale on the Rugby Club and we thrashed them.