Tigers absolutely rubbish

[jgriffin]

"Tigers absolutely rubbish"
"average Bath side"

Yes Tigers did not defend well against a team that know how to attack and score tries. However for large parts of the game we were as good as or better than many performances this season. If we are rubbish and Bath are average where does that leave the 8 teams who did not make the playoffs?

I assume you and I are sober, and some keyboard warriors aren't.

[LE18]

I think many posters on various topics are being unfair to Bath, they played with flair, defended extremely well, cheated and got away with most of it, George Ford just showed his skill and class, his ability to draw a man and then off load, back up, cover etc, were great and I just hope he plays like that for England. Faslet showed his static style, good kicker, good tough tackler but the Sarries brute strength win was a shadow of the flair played by Bath who considerably outplayed us in the backs, where we had little or no knowledge of what to do with ball in hand, some of our passing resembled here you have the ball because i really dont want it, get rid of it quick, by passing onto someone standing still. Pity to end season like that but its not been the greatest. Roll on next year.

Hope Bath beat Sarries as we are not going to get the chance.

[Hot_Charlie]

George North?

[LE18]

Thanks Hot Charlie, just an old man who has not touched a drop, George Ford of course, oh dear!

[Tiger23]

When will people on this forum accept the reality that this team isn't good enough and stop making excuses. To say all the players gave 100% or similar is no point at all as it should be a given for EVERY player wearing the shirt in a professional team. Trying hard does not equate with being good enough!!

We are simply no where near good enough with ball in hand in terms of core skills (catching, passing offloading) or in terms of attacking game-plan. This game was so similar to the Saracens away game - the more we had the ball the less we looked like scoring. The contrast with an excellent Bath team in this area was staggering.

All credit to the team for an excellent display upfront but that makes the obvious deficiencies in attacking options even more disappointing. It can't be often that a team with so much scrum dominance looses so badly in a top level rugby match.

Time for change at the top - RC to go.

[Spicer]

A lot of our players are mediocre, nothing to do with effort. Recruitment has been poor. For next season it looks just as bad currently.

[Cagey Tiger]

When will people on this forum accept the reality that this team isn't good enough and stop making excuses.

Time for change at the top - RC to go.

1. Re making excuses, I see very few excuses being made. When some posters (and I'm not including you in this) paint everything in the blackest black, others feel the need to point out the reality of some contributing factors which have been conveniently ignored.

2. Apart from the two bits I have quoted, I generally agree with you.

[G.K]

We were poor. Our execution is untidy and our approach frankly Fred Karno's. It isn't without foundation that forwards decide Who (they did that) and backs by how many (they did that to). Our soft skills are just not their, we are crying out for structure in the backs. Then there is a chance that you can convert some of the chances with a scalpel rather than a bulldozer. It got embarrassing, 8 visits to the Tigers half. I dread the possession and tackles stats but I think they will flatter us and show that the modern game is as much about what you do with the ball as without it.

The game turned on 5 key areas for me. Inability and it is inability to convert pressure into any points, bad kicking day or otherwise we conceded 7 tries, from 8 visits. Crane gave away a stupid brainless and totally avoidable penalty from a high ball (try), I could run round goneva (twice, try), Morris drops high ball under minimal pressure, it is after all a premiership semi final, (try) and loamanu who otherwise looked good would not take his hands out of a ruck on the bath line and the pressure was gone.

We do not have the game to come back from this, how you perform under pressure is everything as was shown today.

Gallant, brave, gave everything yes, hard not to on a rugby pitch, but out coached, out thought and outplayed.

Too many good players are prepared to leave this club because of the style of rugby we play, that is a fact, TTTE alludes to it, I suspect others will in the off season.

Roll on the great white hope Mauger. We need something different, without it today is about as good as it gets. 7 tries to 1, semi final, say what you like but if it walks like a chicken, talks like a chicken...........

Thanks - you saved me a fair bit of typing there (I'll live with the grammar & typos)! Oh and isn't it Ducks rather than Chickens?

[WiggoTiger]

For a professional side our game management was RUBBISH, why kick to a fast back three and not first up tackle correctly. Too often too static and no cutting edge from 10 to 15. Our improvement that was supposedly to appear for this game did not, too many dropped balls and turnovers.
Burns kicking was woeful for a game of this magnitude, any scores from the boot in 1st half would have kept us in the game and pressure on Bath.
Feel Sarries will beat Bath.......a side will win who has spent VERY well!!
Tigers need better recruitment if they are to challenge for titles with a serious chance of winning them.
A disappointed fan who thought we would do better today

[Crivvens]

Might have known g would turn up within minutes of us losing. Funny, I've not seen much of them this year....

As for our performance, I didn't think we were actually that bad other than the last 15 minutes when we had to pretty much abandon any defensive cohesion in an effort to score the tries we needed. When we lost the ball we were then cut open as our defence just simply wasn't in place.

Mauger has some serious work to do to turn our backs into a potent weapon, but the forwards are the best in the league, and that's down to Cockerill and his coaching. Allied to a hopefully more rapier-like backline next season, I'd say we stand as good a chance as any other side of winning the league. Time will tell.

[biffer]

Plenty of possession, plenty of territory. Complete paucity of ideas.

[WiggoTiger]

Plenty of possession, plenty of territory. Complete paucity of ideas.

+1 sadly!!

[Timmers]

A lot of our players are mediocre, nothing to do with effort. Recruitment has been poor. For next season it looks just as bad currently.

Almost agree...I would actually say "alot of our back players are mediocre" ...we need to be giving our younger players like catchpole and thacker more game time

Today summed up the story of our season so I am not surprised.....our forwards were better, their backs were better......we simply were not clinical enough in the final 3rd against the best attacking line up in the league.

Granted, we fell apart in the last quarter when we were chasing the game, but it could have been a different story if:

-Burns had taken his kicks
-We went for the corner instead of scrum when they were down to 13 men (that was our best chance! don't waste 5mins with scrums!)
-Morris had touched down in the corner....

we then wouldn't have needed to chase the game.

From an attacking point of view, Watson is 21, joseph is 23, eastmond 25, rokodeguni similar age.....these guys are all younger, faster and fitter than our backs and they flow in harmony together which explains why they were so clinical, and have scored twice as many tries as us this season.

Having said all of that, Im proud of Leicester for reaching this stage of the competition....you cant be the best every year and we have done superbly with the group of players available. We need some good signings this summer

[covrich]

I am proud of the grit the side has shown to get ourselves into 3rd given our season.

Bath were to be honest, amazing. They totally outclassed us to be honest. We have a lot of effort and a lot of heart but to be honest they scored whenever they entered our half let alone 22, we looked a bit panicked , sloppy and bereft of ideas. It has been a really huge few weeks for us.

Ultimately we were poor today but I dont want to take anything away from Bath who were just all hooked up and fully deserve their day in Twickers

Yes I am gutted but onwards and upwards we have a new exciting prospect next season.

[sapajo]

IMO we have undoubtedly the best pack in the premiership but the cost of it has negated the quality of our backs. Easier said that done but we need a more balanced side and invest in some top quality backs this summer.