The Rugby Paper : Leicester Tigers Article

[kk20gb30]

Not seen a link to this around before today.Apologies if I'm incorrect.
A decent read , although cant say as i agree with every word......

https://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/feature ... er-tigers/

[jgriffin]

Told ya all it was the MOC era wot dun it.

[Leicestertinytiger]

Good article, sometimes people try to oversimplify our problems on the pitch and blame one person or problem .

However, there have clearly been a multitude of issues from academy, player retention, coaches and senior management which have come together and snowballed to create the situation we’re in now.

Hopefully, given the recent announcements, we’ll see things start to turn around.

[JP14]

It is a good article, but again people shouldn't really read too much into our performances this season especially as it was disrupted and even if resumed we will have almost an entirely different team taking the field.

[RagingBull]

It's a alright article I agree with it mainly but the way it written leaves a lot of holes.
Things like
"Even so, Leicester still managed to lose against a side that had nothing left to fight for, going down 24-13 to Saracens when round 13 of the Premiership was played just before the coronavirus lockdown." - So did Worcester, Saints and Sale.....
irk me some what as a statement.

"Between 2014 in 2018 there were three seasons – 2013-14, 2016-17 and 2017-18 – when no academy players were given senior contracts."
Well that's not quite true, Evans got promoted in 2016/17 season.

"In two more seasons, 2014-15 and 2015-16, there were a total of seven academy players brought into the senior squad, although four appeared to have been young overseas players whose contracts were not extended."
Mr. Cain believing Wiki, in which it said Sio was promoted but he was never actually counted in the senior squad.
You had, Pohe, Brugnara, Tiz, Price, Thacker and Catchpole. Of the 3 overseas players all 3 had been in the academy since 16 and all 3 scouted from the UK, I also fail to see the point of contracts not extended either you are good enough or not.

"This was followed by a further eight – fly-half Tom Hardwick, tight-head Joe Heyes, lock Sam Lewis, wing Jordan Olowofela, flanker Tommy Reffell, centre Sam Aspland-Robinson and scrum-halves Ben White and Harry Simmons – stepping up this season." Sam Aspland-Robinson was Quins academy.

Legendary Leicester and England full-back Hare, who returned from a highly successful seven year stint at the Northampton academy (2010-2017) to become Tigers chief scout three years ago, hands the plaudits for the Leicester production line re-assembly to others, such as academy manager Dave Wilks, head coach Matt Smith, and head of performance pathway, Ged Glynn.

“They have done a good job,” Hare says. Yet, it is fitting that the system that he left in good working order before departing for Franklin’s Gardens has cranked back into life since he returned."

A lazy insinuation, Hare is right to credit Wilks and Glynn TBH, Hare arrival was more coincidental.
Tigers won the U18 academy the season he arrived and when you think a Academy really takes 2/3 years to produce you again have to think it was 2/3 years prior that year the academy started working again. Which ironically fits into the signing of David Wilks who came from the impressive Sale Sharks setup and Jamie Taylor who arrived from Denstone school.

I agree with the principle of the article.
I think most people agree that 2014 was the changing point.
But what Cain fails to mention was 2014 was also really the turning point for rugby in general.
More french clubs deciding to spend money.
More Premiership clubs either driving price up of starters OR targeting 2nd/3rd choice youngsters who are behind the big money starters.

I don't think Tigers deliberately chose to sign journeymen instead of keeping promising young talent. They kind of had too in a lot of ways. The 2013 squad which Cain mentions was a sign of consistency and a positive also highlighted why it can be a negative because the promising young players behind that core got to a stage where they could get more money and more game time elsewhere instead of being behind the likes of Allen, Flood, Hamilton etc etc.

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It just reads like a list of things that either went wrong or we did wrong rather than an in depth article to me....

[1988]

100 players in and 120 out in 7 seasons 🤯 plus manager/coach changes. No chance of that working. Especially when some of this 120 out were some if the 100 in!

Need to give the new structure of coaches 5 years now. No changes.

Build a core of a squad for now. Then a core of academy grads for 4 years time.

[TigerCam]

100 players in and 120 out in 7 seasons 🤯 plus manager/coach changes. No chance of that working. Especially when some of this 120 out were some if the 100 in!

Need to give the new structure of coaches 5 years now. No changes.

Build a core of a squad for now. Then a core of academy grads for 4 years time.

If the Tigers cannot learn from this then there is no hope?

[johnthegriff]

Seven years is a long time in rugby, every season there will be a number of Development players that just do not develop to the required standard and will need to move on to create space so the younger ones get their chance, there will be players that suffer injury and retire other will simply age. The nature of the game is that contracts have a term, usually two or three years, at the end of that period the club and the player have to agree a valuation for renewal and stay or go depending on the result of the negotiation. I don't know if fifteen or so players a year is excessive, it sounds a lot, in a successful team I would think three or four at most first team squad per year about the norm. Stability in the coaching set up which you tend to get with a winning team is crucial, changing the coaches often means changing the style which can mean changing the players, rapid changes of coaches and game plans rarely works.
Stability of management and players is key to success, we as fans are impatient and want it overnight but in reality we need to see improvement first and then witness the evolution as our team returns to the top. Players will still move on regularly but need to be replaced by better players, that has not always been the case over recent years. The wholesale changes made recently could be too much but maybe it is what we need instead of tinkering around the edges, it seems we have a few new signings to look forward to adding to the ones already signed. Our development squad is strengthened from our Academy plus a few recently recruited young players, our new coaches will have all that they need for our team to come together and climb the table as it evolves into the top table side that we are used to. Hopefully!

[1988]

I hope so,

It would be interesting to know how many player movements other teams have had.

We need to pick a coach, hopefully we now have and commit. 5 years minimum let him build the team he wants.

I think we are in a current similar position to wasps. New coach, recent poor runs, looking to build. However the pressure from fans (rightly so) is so much higher at tigers. I just hope they are given time to progress.

[Dangerous4]

Good article, and 95% pertinent imo.