Today's game (Tigers) v Sale (KON)

[RagingBull]

Players who impressed:
1) Mike Williams my man of the match carried hard but also put in hits I haven't seen at Tigers for a long time, tackling machine.
2) Betham 2nd MotM showed amazing awareness in attack, smartly finished a try and helped create a try with a well read intercept and nice offload to Thompstone for Croft try.
3) Burns looked like his Glous best is starting to show is loving the attacking game plan from Mauger I guess first 20 was pure class from him.
4) Fitzgerald a workhorse lock with the mobility in defence to be an extra flanker how to pick between him, Kitch and Slater.
5) Croft was looking back to his attacking best and McCaffrey looks handy over the ball not an 8 IMO.

There were other but CBa naming everyone ATM.

Points of concern
1) gaps in defense still working on new system which when it does click will look really good.
2) Mulipola whilst looked good at times is not match fit.

Short note of cameos:
Fonua with a nice carry and offload to Pearce came to Tigers 6am today.
Odogwu with another smartly finish try can't wait to see him become a senior player.

[KUSADASI TIGER]

Bentham good try but had no pace as a winger to out sprint Sale defence .

Lachlan McCaffrey a waste of time,far too many penalties in fact i think he gave away nearly every penalty we conceded except for Harry Thackers sin bin penalty .

Opeti Fonua good cameo takes some stopping

Freddie Burns mostly positive a couple of poor kicks in first half for position but penalty and conversion kicking top notch.

[Darc Tiger]

Didn't see today's game but McCaffrey has been a standout when I have been there.

[jgriffin]

Bentham good try but had no pace as a winger to out sprint Sale defence .

Lachlan McCaffrey a waste of time,far too many penalties in fact i think he gave away nearly every penalty we conceded except for Harry Thackers sin bin penalty .

Opeti Fonua good cameo takes some stopping

Freddie Burns mostly positive a couple of poor kicks in first half for position but penalty and conversion kicking top notch.

Caffrey was wrongly penalised twice at least - he has excellent body strength and twice correctly stayed on his feet in front of my position and stole ball, both times penalised. Others standing near me also felt similarly. Frankly, the ref was poor, the TJs didn't do the AR job. Mujati dropped his bind persistently and the TJs didn't tell the ref AFAIK. I would also like to know if the 'ball behind the back foot is out' has been rescinded.
Williams was an animal, and frankly we seem to be accumulating animals; Fitzgerald is one, Pearce looks like a local out for a fight, Logo, Fonua, it even seemed to be infecting Croftie.

[longlivethecrumbie]

Bentham good try but had no pace as a winger to out sprint Sale defence .

Lachlan McCaffrey a waste of time,far too many penalties in fact i think he gave away nearly every penalty we conceded except for Harry Thackers sin bin penalty .

Opeti Fonua good cameo takes some stopping

Freddie Burns mostly positive a couple of poor kicks in first half for position but penalty and conversion kicking top notch.

Caffrey was wrongly penalised twice at least - he has excellent body strength and twice correctly stayed on his feet in front of my position and stole ball, both times penalised. Others standing near me also felt similarly. Frankly, the ref was poor, the TJs didn't do the AR job. Mujati dropped his bind persistently and the TJs didn't tell the ref AFAIK. I would also like to know if the 'ball behind the back foot is out' has been rescinded.
Williams was an animal, and frankly we seem to be accumulating animals; Fitzgerald is one, Pearce looks like a local out for a fight, Logo, Fonua, it even seemed to be infecting Croftie.

The TJ told Mujati not to bind one the arm at the first scrum of the game - this was right in front of us - very next scrum, from the re-set, Mujati binds on the arm and Tigers get pinged for Logo boring in but Mujati again guilty of binding on the arm, as before .

[wardy]

Did anyone else notice the position taken up by Burns at line-outs? He took the position normally taken up by the scrum-half close to the thrower. Meanwhile Harrison was in midfield where Burns would normally be. Obviously a planned move but I've never seen such a 'swap' before, and wonder what the theory might be. Any thoughts?

[Hot_Charlie]

The ref is quite new - he was the one at the centre of the controversial Saints v Wasps match last season. May need an anatomy book for Christmas to help identify the shoulder and neck region of the body...

Williams spent a lot of the day defending at 10. You could see why though. He's a machine.

[Bill W (2)]

Tigers young and old showed much promise.

Ref was pretty poor. Has he not heard of truck and trailer? I think he was trying to give the attacking side the advantage at the breakdown - but his interpretation of "on your feet" was interesting.

Thackers yellow card - the ball was out and he came from behind the rearmost foot!!!!

[Cassandra]

Several times yesterday we were told we had to best Sale by 36 points and deny them a bonus point in order to win the KOTN tournament. Before the match, Sale had a +56 points difference whilst we had -14. To me, that means we had to win by >70 points.

Or am I missing something?

[Tyzot]

Every point we score counts for us and comes off them. So effectively counts double

[longlivethecrumbie]

I get the feeling already that McCaffrey is going to be a marmite player for the fans on here

[Doghashadhisday]

I get the feeling already that McCaffrey is going to be a marmite player for the fans on here

It's always the same, everyone has their favourites and their favourite hates. There are some who will read a post which says he gives away penalties and that will be that for the rest of his Tigers career, he will be seen as a liability even if in most games he plays out of his skin. Hey ho!

[PaleoTiger]

Thought is was a good game, let be honest, we were never in trouble of losing the game, it just played it self out TBH.

Totally agree with other comments, Burns looks good, I was really nervous when he went off and he is a single point of failure until OW gets fit again. Both Mike Fitz & Williams look like top signings, really adding some beef to the pack, I liked McCaffrey too, looks another big mobile unit, if everyone stays fit, we could really have some tough selection in the forwards this season.

I thought that Seramei Bai looked good at 12, I just wish that he was 10 years younger.

It was good to see the influence of new coaching when attacking, I can't remember the last time that I saw the ball get passed from touchline to touchline to create an opening, we did this several times when attacking and am really looking forward to seeing what we can do with our first choice team in a proper competitive fixture.

The future looks bright going into the AV campaign and I think that we are probably where we wanted to be.

[Cassandra]

Every point we score counts for us and comes off them. So effectively counts double

Of course! Thank you and apologies for my brief senior moment.

[Noggs]

One of the best home games I've seen in some time. Clearly the new coaching is working a treat, particularly in terms of keeping the ball alive and attacking options.

Fonua is a very big lad and as with Muli there may be problems with achieving and maintaining match fitness but as an impact player he is going to be very effective in drawing players into the tackle and creating space for others to run into.

Looking forward to the proper season getting underway