Leicester Tigers 18-19

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Fixtures

Pre-Season

Saturday 11th August - Cardiff Blues (a)
Friday 17th August - Benetton Treviso (a)
Friday 24th August - London Irish (h)

Gallagher Premiership

SEPTEMBER
Saturday 1st 16:30 Exeter Chiefs (a)
Saturday 8th 15:00 Newcastle Falcons (h)
Sunday 16th 15:00 Wasps (a)
Sunday 23rd 15:00 Worcester Warriors (h)
Sunday 30th 15:00 Sale Sharks (h)



OCTOBER
Saturday 6th 15:00 Northampton Saints (a - Twickenham)


NOVEMBER
Friday 16th 19:45 Gloucester (a)
Sunday 25th 15:00 Saracens (h)
Friday 30th 19:45 Bristol (a)


DECEMBER
21/22/23 Harlequins (H)
28/29/30 Bath (A)


JANUARY
4/5/6 Gloucester (H)


FEBRUARY
15/16/17 Saracens (A)
22/23/24 Worcester Warriors (A)


MARCH
1/2/3 Wasps (H)
8/9/10 Sale Sharks (A)
22/23/24 Northampton Saints (H)


APRIL
5/6/7 Exeter Chiefs (H)
12/13/14 Newcastle Falcons (A)
26/27/28 Bristol (H)


MAY
3/4/5 Harlequins (A)
18 Bath (H)
24/25 Semi


JUNE
1st Final


European Champions Cup
12/13/14 October - Round 1
19/20/21 October - Round 2
7/8/9 December - Round 3
14/15/16 December - Round 4
11/12/13 January - Round 5
18/19/20 January - Round 6
29/30/31 March - 1/4 Finals
19/20/21 April - Semis
11th May - Final


Premiership Rugby Cup

Saturday October 27th 15:00 Saracens (a)
Saturday November 3rd 15:00 Worcester Warriors(h)
Friday November 19th 19:45 Sale Sharks
January 25/26/27 Northampton (a)
February 9th Semi-finals
March 16th Final




Squad and Coaching Team:

Head Coach: Matt O'Connor
Forwards Coach: Mark Bakewell
Assistant Coach: Geordan Murphy
Scrum Coach: Boris Stankovich
Senior Development coach: Brett Deacon
Team Manager: Teresa Carrington
Head of Rugby Operations: Ged Glyn


First Team Squad:
(as on Tigers website)

Props: Greg Bateman, Dan Cole, Gaston Cortes, Ellis Genge, Facundo Gigena, Owen Hills
Hookers: Jake Kerr, Tatafu Polota-Nau, Jimmmy Stevens, Tom Youngs
Second Row: Mike Fitzgerald, Graham Kitchener, Will Spencer, James Voss, Harry Wells
Back Row: Dave Denton, Will Evans, Sione Kalamafoni, Valention Mapapalangi, Brendon O'Connor, Guy Thompson, Fred Tuilagi, Mike Williams

Half Backs: Joe Ford, George Ford, Sam Harrison, Matt Toomua, Ben Youngs
Outside Backs: Jonah Holmes, Jonny May, Gareth Owen, Matt Smith, Matthew Tait, Charlie Thacker, Adam Thompstone, Manu Tuilagi, Telusa Veainu, George Worth


Development Squad:

Forwards: Taylor Gough, Sam Grahamslaw, Joe Heyes, Cameron Jordan, Henri Lavin, Sam Lewis, Keston Lines, Harry Mahoney, Tommy Reffell, Thom Smith
Backs: Sam Aspland-Robinson, Tom Hardwicke, Jordan Olowefela, Harry Simmons, Ben White

LondonTiger wrote:MOC gone.

With Geordan taking over on an interim basis

It's brutal but I was really hoping he would still be there come Ulster's games against Tigers in the Champions Cup.

Yep. Bit surprised that the board were so decisive. Still think we need an outside defence coach to come in.

Big call, brave call. But did the board have a choice?

I couldn't believe he openly admitted the forwards weren't fit!

I'd love them to have Deano back

What's the point in sticking with him all through the off season, pre season and the first game just to sack him straight away. Seems a shambles.

I'm with yappy on this. I don't think he's done a good job looks well out of his depth but pull the trigger at the end of last season.

It looks like the coaching across the prem has improved with the additions at Saints, Quins and Bristol's promotion.

Leicester are the biggest under performers followed close behind by the Bath rich boys

Raising the bar is all to England's good

He should have gone at the start of the summer. Hell he should never have got the job in the first place.

He rocked up for pre season two weeks late. The team go into the first game with no discernible attack pattern or defensive organisation and a misfiring lineout. Then had a go at the forwards for not being fit enough.

He'd dug himself a hole and must have known his time was up. The board wanted to give him the time to turn things around but after that first game there may well have been a riot at the fans forum this week had he remained. His position was untenable.

The fans are still unhappy. He's Glynn and Simon Cohen are being vilified on the fans forum and even Murphy is coping some stick as the skills coach which is rare because Geordan is beloved at Welford Road.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2018/09/03/leicester-tigers-head-coach-matt-oconnor-leaves-club/

Is it really true that he was appointed because those making the decision couldn’t agree on which of the other, better candidates to go with so they ended up taking MOC as some kind of bizarre compromise? Surely that’s too mad to be true?!

No 7&1/2 wrote:I'm with yappy on this.  I don't think he's done a good job looks well out of his depth but pull the trigger at the end of last season.

Yea. For him to be sacked so quickly, he can't have had any backing from the board. So why bother wasting a pre season?

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2018/09/03/leicester-tigers-head-coach-matt-oconnor-leaves-club/

Is it really true that he was appointed because those making the decision couldn’t agree on which of the other, better candidates to go with so they ended up taking MOC as some kind of bizarre compromise? Surely that’s too mad to be true?!

That sounds so incredible it has to be true!

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2018/09/03/leicester-tigers-head-coach-matt-oconnor-leaves-club/

Is it really true that he was appointed because those making the decision couldn’t agree on which of the other, better candidates to go with so they ended up taking MOC as some kind of bizarre compromise? Surely that’s too mad to be true?!

No it isn't true.

Not surprised to see MOC go and frankly not upset. Talk of losing the dressing room etc will come out in the laundry - although it wouldn't surprise many. From a fans perspective I've simply never enjoyed his tactics since returning. The overly simplistic, telegraphed and poorly drilled forward suggested a coach unwilling to adapt with what's in front of his eyes.

From the clubs perspective it has come at an odd time, especially with MOC joining pre-season 2 weeks late.

Some interesting names being suggested as DOR and/or head coach. My tuppence worth:

Farrell - An interesting suggestion to try to nab him with the top job similar to Quins getting Gustard. He's not the finished package as a coach but his strengths as a coach are currently Tigers weaknesses. The end of his England time raises questions over whether he's ready to be fully in charge of a side, especially in attack.

Rowntree - Was Wig not pictured with the squad during pre-season? His Lions credentials are superb and his England ones started very strongly before being tainted by the RWC campaign. Set-piece and forward work in general needs improving. On the counter Brett Deacon and Bakewell are two of the only coaches currently avoiding flak.

Lancaster - Would he leave Leinster? Largely will depend on whether he's interested in working back up the RFU ranks you'd presume.

Ali Hepher - A coach I know little about but you'd presume he wants to progress beyond 2nd in command at some point and he's very well regarded. Would Tigers currently tempt him from a very impressive Chiefs set-up?

In a dream world I'd offer Wayne Smith everything we can.

yappysnap wrote:

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2018/09/03/leicester-tigers-head-coach-matt-oconnor-leaves-club/

Is it really true that he was appointed because those making the decision couldn’t agree on which of the other, better candidates to go with so they ended up taking MOC as some kind of bizarre compromise? Surely that’s too mad to be true?!

That sounds so incredible it has to be true!

It could be true. Ospreys did a ‘world class’ search and still ended up with Allan Clarke.

Anyone want Bernard Jackman?

Nah, me neither.

Just heard MOC has gone.

TBH I'd expect it at the ened of last season, doing it one game into the season is ... muddled.

Geordan Murphy has taken temporary charge.

As with that Argentinain chap a few years back it seems its losing the dressing room rather than the actual result at the weekend thats really done for him. The players dont seem to be comfortable with what they are being asked to do.

I'd love them to have Deano back

Bugger Off.

All joking aside - was there not a lot of 'Bad Feeling' with Deano and that Gestalt Entity known as the Board?

Deano - as we all know is a very touchy feely type person, he oozes vulnerability and might feel a little disenfranchised in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Tigers.

How are Tigers fans feeling this morning?

mikey_dragon wrote:

yappysnap wrote:

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2018/09/03/leicester-tigers-head-coach-matt-oconnor-leaves-club/

Is it really true that he was appointed because those making the decision couldn’t agree on which of the other, better candidates to go with so they ended up taking MOC as some kind of bizarre compromise? Surely that’s too mad to be true?!

That sounds so incredible it has to be true!

It could be true. Ospreys did a ‘world class’ search and still ended up with Allan Clarke.

Very similar. The world class search suggested three names nine of which were MOC. It's annoying having seen two if the names Van Graan and Ackerman come North and develop teams well whilst we've gone backwards.

From what I gather the story is some of the Board always wanted MOC others not so much.
So those that wanted MOC wanted a criteria for the coaches of 1. Winning a trophy as a coach and 2. Having coached in the prem already.

Basically just MOC.

Poor decision making. We've not missed out on those recommended by the consultants and those available over the summer.

Unsure if who's left. Johnno won't take it and Rowntree doesn't appear ready for a top job. Ali Hepher is being linked again but he's turned down jobs before. Mike Ford and Andy Farrell also linked but neither would get the fans onside particularly. Tempt Martin Haag from England under 20s?

Short term, hopefully the shackles will be removed from the half backs and the standing orders will stop being to kick possession away all the time.

Long term who knows - not sure Geordan is the answer, but no idea who is.

Welly wrote: From what I gather the story is some of the Board always wanted MOC others not so much.
So those that wanted MOC wanted a criteria for the coaches of 1. Winning a trophy as a coach and 2. Having coached in the prem already.

Basically just MOC.

Jim Mallinder is available and meets those requirements.

Someone must have said Jake White by now.

LondonTiger wrote:

Welly wrote: From what I gather the story is some of the Board always wanted MOC others not so much.
So those that wanted MOC wanted a criteria for the coaches of 1. Winning a trophy as a coach and 2. Having coached in the prem already.

Basically just MOC.

Jim Mallinder is available and meets those requirements.

He's working for the RFU. Be egg on the face of Dean Ryan who allegedly made coaches who'd been working at the RFU for a number of years redundant to make room for Mallinder.

Please not Jake White.

All sorts of names whirling around, everybody from Robbie Deans to Ben Ryan. The local rag which gets tip offs from Tigers is staying quiet so either the club have no plans in place or there's going to be an announcement sooner rather than later.

There is a fans forum tonight. That should be lively.

Seems to me Leicester board keep fighting yesterday's battles, and placing too much faith in the value of previous experience with Tigers, rather than creating an environment to get the best out of new hires.

Madder than a box of hair, this decision.

Why do it unless there is a particular replacement in mind?

Tigers are a prestige club. I would be straight on the phone to Scott Robertson asking him how much he wants to leave the Crusaders 9 months early.

The reason from the board..

"We had a review over the summer ahead of the new season and recommendations were made following that. The opportunity was given to the coach and staff to implement these, but it was felt that unfortunately recommendations weren't implemented."

And then they were poo against Exeter. I'm fine with doing it now as Murphy should be able to do a number whilst searching for a replacement.

I'm hoping Murphy for 9 months then Robertson

Rugby Fan wrote:Seems to me Leicester board keep fighting yesterday's battles, and placing too much faith in the value of previous experience with Tigers, rather than creating an environment to get the best out of new hires.

I think there's a mixed view on this. Some of board including Cohen were around when Tigers brought in two big name foreign coaches with no Tigers connection, the first was an unmitigated disaster and the second finished too soon because of personal reasons. Cockerill emerged as the main man and from the on it's been the opinion that Tigers need a Leicester alumni like Deano and Cockers.

Some of the newer members including Ged Glynn seem less set on that plan. Ged oversaw the academy overhaul that saw some Tigers old boys get the boot, it's been a very positive step.

MOC was well out of his depth and his actions in the off season had left him in a completely untenable situation. He was in real danger of being heckled onto the pitch at the first game of the season. The chances of him winning the fans over was pretty much nil.

https://twitter.com/LeicesterTigers/status/1037069852782088193?s=19

Good question

nathan wrote:https://twitter.com/LeicesterTigers/status/1037069852782088193?s=19

Good question

And perhaps the only question for which they gave a garbled answer.

The entire twitter feed covering the Q&A is interesting reading.

The Cockerill decision was absolutely right at the time he was appointed , and correct at the time he was booted....even if there was a faction that had it in for him from day one.

The MOC one is where people should be held accountable. But then if thats used as a way of bloodletting and power struggle within the board ...that cant be healthy for the club.

The two competing visions of "big name intenrational coach" vs " promote from within and preserve the dressing room culture and exceptionalism" have both had their days and come up short. The Deano situation Meyer instead of Back/Key was the start of the decline really.

MOC just seemd like a halfway fudge of someone who was neither a real insider nor someone of genuine global status even if he had won stuff elsewhere. Personaly I dont think he did a great job even in his first stint a Tigers, I've heard he was part of the reason the academy went from producing a golden generation of Lions stars to struggling to supply first team club players.

It is a farce that this didnt happen at the end of last season. But this is where we are at now.
I doubt they will let the Cockerill situation occur again, even if Muprhy gets results and builds momentum I dont see him getting the permanent job ...unless they bring someone in over him as a hands on DOR.

Another option to appease both factions would be to get someone like Johnson or Kay in as a figurehead leader with a big name coach running the team.


Its going to be a big ask to pick Tigers up again, but at least expectation levels will have been tempered now giving whoever does get teh job a bit of breathing space. Its dropped from must reach both finals and lift one cup, to get out of the eurpean group stages and get in the playoffs, now to just make the playoffs and avoid humiliation in Europe.
To be honest scoring a try would be a good start.

LondonTiger wrote:

nathan wrote:https://twitter.com/LeicesterTigers/status/1037069852782088193?s=19

Good question

And perhaps the only question for which they gave a garbled answer.

The entire twitter feed covering the Q&A is interesting reading.

The two questions I found very interesting were that one above and the one below posed to Cohen:

Q: Regarding the Daily Mail article a few weeks ago, do we have a mole on the board or did you leak it?

A: Did I leak it? No. If I speak to the press I do so on the record with my name next to any and all quotes.

It feels that many of the suits have reached an impasse where there is little to no faith left with the fans from a rugby perspective. As always with a PLC that produces some difficult questions when the business side is functioning well.

Doesn't mean he didn't get anyone else to leak it. He skipped over the bit about the mole quite quickly.

The answers were pretty well scripted. Same with Ben on Rugby Tonight, it was noticeable that similar phrases came up in the answers from various parties.

So still think we need a defence and breakdown specialist coach to come in but that's one hell of an improvement on last weekend.

Team still did not look fit enough. First 30 minutes was strong with team working hard off the ball to reorganise in defence and attack. Many in the pack were blowing after that, and taps in defence, reduced options in attack started to appear.

Yeah we did seem to fade as the game wore on. The worrying thing is that isn't an easy fix.

There should be an investigation into that, who's at fault S&C or MOC or someone else? There was enough pictures of the players in training being shoved online.

Might not be a fitness thing Sam so much as a pacing issue. Seems they came out hell for leather determined to prove a point for thsi game.
And/or that as the case has been in the past that they are still in a period of overtraining and tired coming into games witha a view to peaking later in the season.

In regards to looking to peak later in the season that may well be the case. Certainly our opposition look fresher than we do. I'm not sure we can get away with looking to peak towards the end of the season anymore, both competitions are too competitive now and we aren't the force we were.

Our organisation and defensive discipline are still behind where they need to be and that is also where we have our most inexperienced coach.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Our organisation and defensive discipline are still behind where they need to be and that is also where we have our most inexperienced coach.

We got lucky a couple of times when we had Tom Youngs and Dan Cole as first and second defender on the openside trying to cover about 15m, but either through slowing the ball down or poor decisions by Falcons we could recover.

For the first 30 minutes we were hitting the Falcon's carriers hard and often knocking them back, but the longer the game went on we started to fall off the tackles a little. You could see that the defence was fired up at the start but a number of players in the pack (Bateman most notably to me) were blowing quite hard after 30 minutes.

Similar story Vs Chiefs. We were doing well whilst the forwards had the energy to put in the big hits. Once they started to fade we got stuffed.

Hopefully if we're a bit more organised this week we won't have to work as hard individually. If we fade Wasps have the firepower to give us a proper kicking

6 tries conceded in week 1.
5 in week 2
4 yesterday.

At least it is going down.

Fitness notably improving as well. If pre-season was disrupted by the coaching situation then this is unsurprising but still good to see.

I am really worried about what Scarlets will do to our defence.

What defence?

Looking back at the extended highlights it seems that for much of the game we had Kalamafoni and Denton defending in the 12/13 channel once we went beyond first phase. Mills especially seems to slice between them with ease in the first half.

Gotta love the loan player we have on the bench covering booked tonight:

16 Stefan Younghusband (Loughborough Students)

Lot of Coventry players on show. I hope they didn't all play at the weekend, they'll be shattered otherwise.

Interesting to see a loosehead at tighthead, am eight at lock and a player who has played lock internationally at 8.

The defence was a shambles at the weekend. Worcester seem to have used the back move Crossing an awful lot but if you get away with it. Kalamafoni really should not be stood out to defend in midfield he isn't mobile enough. For the final try we had three people on guard at the breakdown marking one player whilst Ted Hill stood unopposed. That pretty summed it up for me.

Jonah Holmes named in the Wales squad for the AIs. Not sure he will play, but if he is capped it reduces our EQP numbers.

LondonTiger wrote:Jonah Holmes named in the Wales squad for the AIs. Not sure he will play, but if he is capped it reduces our EQP numbers.

Annoying that it reduces the EQ numbers and it appears to be Welsh games to try and bring players to Wales. Back three player with potential who is out of contract in the summer, hmm cap him and then tell him he might have an international career if he goes to Wales.

In reality he doesn't have the defence for international rugby. We could also do without losing one of our very few fullbacks for the international window.