Tigers 27-27 Gloucester - Your View

[Big Bad John]

I can forgive a poor forwards display this week, as it doesn't often happen, and for me, George Chuter was the only first team player in his preffered position! Corry played woefully at 6, and gave no support to Luke Abraham who himself did not offer as much in loose play as he has in the past. Played with two number eights and an injured flanker for most of the game, no wonder we couldn't link any phases together!!! Scrum was really pretty weak in the first half two, which is desperate when you look at the size of the two lock who were playing. I thought Martin Castrogiovanni was fantastic when he came on, some great tackles and he didnt half sure up the scrummage. In my oppinion he made Seru's try, as up until then ball from our scrum was very rushed and sloppy, with Richards in control. I have to mention Lewis, he was a beast when he came on.

The Backs were poor again, somewhat of a recurring theme from the past couple of seasons! No overstatement whatsoever. You would have to look back to 2003 to find a prolonged run of decent back play. Something has to be done about the way they line up for an attacking ball, they stand far to shallow, allowing the defence to line up and hit everyman at the same time if they wanted! This is particularly the case when we are close to the opponents try line, I cant remember the last try the backs scored from 5 or 10 meters out, it usually goes through about 10 phases of pushing and shoving until we finally scramble round the side of a ruck, or as happened twice on Saturday, attempt a tiny chip over the defence and lose the ball! This really is a disgrace. Pat Howard you were a legend of scintillating back play, what is going wrong? The centres dont seem to have any time to create anything, and we seem to have no pre-worked moves to call upon. I know Tigers have a fantastic set of players, each capable of brilliance, Sam Vesty tore Gloucester apart on numerous occasions in the second half, only to find Tom Varndell had gone for a stroll across the other side of the park... I don't really know wht the solution is, it is all well and good saying we have Gibbo and Smith and Lloyd and Tuilagi missing, but we are also missing a game plan and some basic tactics, which for me are far more important. We should be winning games with any combination of backs, because they are all good enough individually, they just don't seem to be able to work as a team!