Leicester Tigers

To be fair to Bleddyn, he now seems to have mastered Lavanini, having initially christened him 'Lanny Veeny'! )Incidentally, I noticed that the announcer at the Mad Stad was completely stumped by Olowofela last week). My young spies tell me that Jonny May is getting some heat treatment in Dubai :smt...

There seems to be a lot of (IMO) knee-jerk criticism of Eastmond on here. Look at the highlights and you will see that none of the Saints breaks were his responsibility: the two in the first half were both between Gigena and Wells (I think) and the final try was down to Forsyth (who missed another t...

Indeed - this weekend was his first full game this season as far as I can remember. He played very little for Crusaders, who preferred Whetu Douglas for most of the campaign. It is hugely beneficial to us that Liam Squire isn't in the AB squad, as he and JT have been playing roughly half a game each...

In the previous semi, I thought Lavanini had his best game of the season by a long way - seemed far more involved and I suppose he was 'up for it' as it was a semi. He did drop one cold, but showed good hands to scoop another ball off the deck and pass cleverly. Battered over for a close-range try. ...

If he's still got miles in his legs, Luke Wallace would be a seriously good squad addition, MotM in televised games on many occasions. I remember Will Greenwood pushing very hard for his inclusion in the England squad a few years ago. You are always going to get a whole lot of injuries in your back ...

That's true - there were a few who moved after getting good offers, but at least one has returned.

The lack of wins this season doesn't reflect lack of effort, team spirit or quality of coaching. Unfortunately, having won promotion when they were easily the best team, the step up is (again) proving too much. The same thing happened in Chris Tarbuck's last season as head coach. The biggest factor ...

Geordan said that he was fit and could have played on Friday, but they decided not to force the issue and give him another week.

I, too, would like to see more of Holmes. However, Tigers seem to befollowing the All Blacks model (made explicit on the excellent behind-the-scenes series showing last summer's campaign) of having an 'attacking winger' on the left and a 'defensive winger' on the right. I imagine we'll see Holmes re...

Based on his U20 WC performances, I'd also say that Hardwick could be a serious option at 12 - he has the distribution skills of a 10, but seems to relish the contact stuff as well. According to Ged Glynn, "Tom Hardwick, playing at 12, was vigorous and intelligent in defence, and with ball in h...

I've noticed that the rugby pundits have been begging up Garces recently. Remember, he was the ref when Munster got away with murder at the breakdown against Tigers at Thomond Park and Veainu 'accidentally' had his jaw broken by Conway!

He means a succession of errors - especially conceding free kicks and penalties - which allow the opposition easy incremental progress up the pitch into a scoring position. MB identified poor handling and some scrum issues and Ugo Monye, on commentary, criticised our lack of patience. One minute you...

Now seen the highlights and the Glos tries were defensive howlers: Malouf & Veainu jumping out of the line and then Harrison left all on his own guiding the blind-side of a ruck on our line. You'd expect better at this level TBH. Combined with the yellow card, it feels like another game we could...

Matt O'Connor chose not to go down the Cockers route of criticising the ref (wisely), but I can assure you that he was extremely vocal during the second half in his observations regarding the officials interpretation of offside, high tackles, cards etc. Almost back to the volume of his first stint a...

It won't be Marty for some while anyway - he's the main fly-half for Taranaki in the Mitre 10 competition.