Team Vs London Irish

[DickyP]

Beethoven's 9th at the Albert Hall is always to be looked forward to. Lets hope its an Ode to Joy at Welford Road!

If you think that Tigers/Saints is a bitter contest you've never seen anything until you've heard Leipzig and Dresden arguing over where Schiller 'really' wrote the 'Ode to Joy' (the words used for European Anthem to the 9th).

[TigerLad]

I worry about the forwards and I'd guess the reason we've gone for an 8-2 split is to try and compensate for that with more fresh legs. I'd take a 3-0 win right now. Irish will come down here thinking they can win and we are down to the bare bones of the squad now. If I can see 100% effort from the team and a real desire to win then I think we will scrape it.

[ourla]

Bookies have us at 1/7 to win and Irish 11/2. Purely from a betting POV Irish are the bet.

Alternatively take Irish on the handicap: 10/11 Ladbrokes +13 points or 2/1 with Boylesport +9 points. can we beat Irish by more than 8 points?

[tigerburnie]

I seem to recall screams of derision that we were not using our youngsters last year, now we are, they are being belittled and called "weak".
I see a weakness and it's in the spine of some of the posters on here. No one gets to wear a Tigers shirt unless they are capable, some might be early in their development and may need time and support to reach their personal heights, but get some passion in your support rather than the whinge fest. We have the best on the field we can muster, I will be interested to see how some of the newer faces take on the challenge, tough day today, but we can win this game.

COME ON YOU TIGERRRRRRrrrrssssssss

[old one eye]

I seem to recall screams of derision that we were not using our youngsters last year, now we are, they are being belittled and called "weak".
I see a weakness and it's in the spine of some of the posters on here. No one gets to wear a Tigers shirt unless they are capable, some might be early in their development and may need time and support to reach their personal heights, but get some passion in your support rather than the whinge fest. We have the best on the field we can muster, I will be interested to see how some of the newer faces take on the challenge, tough day today, but we can win this game.

COME ON YOU TIGERRRRRRrrrrssssssss







Spot ON

[MrPartridge]

Thank Ourla - even money on Irish at +13 is crazy in my opinion!

Not sure about others but I'm really looking forward to today! In the last few years we have beaten LI comfortably home and away so this will tell us what strength in depth we have. If you take the back row, 9-10 and consider Goneva/Tait/Benjamin are arguably first choice XV then we still have half the first team on display.

At home, backs-to-the-wall should be an exciting day out.

One other thing - I believe today we find out how good the coaching team are! Not hard to coach with the same team in winning mood but you find out about coaches (and players) when the chips are down. As a minimum I expect a solid scrum that gives us decent ball on our put-ins, better defence particularly by the backs and some attacking flair (not hard to improve on that from last week!).

Roll on 3pm - hopefully Tigers by a score and a nice little earner backing LI on the +13 handy!

[4071]

Cripes (a strongr word is intended) barrels are being scraped a bit.
Don't me EVER hear another word about not giving youth its chance with our quartet of props and Mr Wells in the reckoning.

As you say yourself, barrels are being scraped.

Youth is being given a belated chance simply through lack of choice. As soon as there is choice again, youth will be binned. And what's the betting that if we struggle today, this game will be pointed to as a reason that Cockerill is right not to pick young players. A stance that completely ignores how youth development SHOULD work - by bringing players into a solid side, not by chucking a load of them into a weakened side simply because of a lack of options.

I only hope that we don't struggle and some people - fans and coaches - realise that our young players are pretty useful after all.

[RagingBull]

As you say yourself, barrels are being scraped.

Youth is being given a belated chance simply through lack of choice. As soon as there is choice again, youth will be binned. And what's the betting that if we struggle today, this game will be pointed to as a reason that Cockerill is right not to pick young players. A stance that completely ignores how youth development SHOULD work - by bringing players into a solid side, not by chucking a load of them into a weakened side simply because of a lack of options.

I only hope that we don't struggle and some people - fans and coaches - realise that our young players are pretty useful after all.

Can tell your a glass half full person.

FYI cockers has even before the injuries he was going to use younger players more this season.

[MurphysLaw]

[quote="MrPartridge"]Thank Ourla - even money on Irish at +13 is crazy in my opinion!

Not sure about others but I'm really looking forward to today! In the last few years we have beaten LI comfortably home and away so this will tell us what strength in depth we have....

Roll on 3pm - hopefully Tigers by a score and a nice little earner backing LI on the +13 handy![/quote]

I hope that you are right of course, but I'm not sure which previous games you are referring to as comfortable, because I think they have all been relatively close in recent times. All edged by Tigers by less than 10 points, bar one 24/24 draw.

An edged win would be fine by me.

[covrich]

Sounds like we're having a fractious time so far.. could go in at half time 3 halves in a row without scoring a point , Burns has missed a couple though

[RagingBull]

Sounds like we're having a fractious time so far.. could go in at half time 3 halves in a row without scoring a point , Burns has missed a couple though

Or not.

[tigerburnie]

Looking at the twitter feed, we pushed close, will be interesting to see what went on.

[kpj tiger]

Don't want to join the harping on about the ref but even Irish fans must agree that if a punch is just a telling off then a late tackle cannot be a yellow card

[covrich]

From Radio feed we sounded like we have some decent play with ball in hand but blew a few chances.

Just lacked a bit of class at times.. Burns missied a few easy kicks which also doesn't help.

Also according to the commentary the reffing was very one eyed but I always take radio commentary with a huge pinch of salt.

Next week we face Gloucester who are thankfully also not playing their best but we are playing away to them...

[drc_007]

Tigers young props played really well.

Burns kicking is not reliable enough at the moment. They need to let Williams have a go.

Ben Youngs looks out of sorts, is the captaincy weighing on his mind.

We kick too much ball way, I've no idea why.

London Irish are experts at holding player up in the tackle, why did players not go to ground earlier and ruck?

Defence improved as the game went on but Tigers could have conceded 3 tries in the first half.

No serious injuries as far as I could tell.