BRISTOL (A) - 26th December 2021 - 2-00pm

[loretta]

So was the “penalty try” announced on FlashScore a wind-up, or was there one that was disallowed?

Must have been a wind up!

Or just a simple error

[fentiger]

I'm sure the kicking game is statistics driven, will a 10% return of opposition mistakes/successful kick chasing, more often than not, lead to scoring? So, 20 kicks will probably mean two scores?

[OakhamTiger32]

I'm sure the kicking game is statistics driven, will a 10% return of opposition mistakes/successful kick chasing, more often than not, lead to scoring? So, 20 kicks will probably mean two scores?

And when you have a player like Ford, play to your strengths. Spiral bomb, 50/22, kick chase etc..

[JayC2]

What a game. Was on my feet for the last 5 minutes of the Sarries game, but this was something else

Oh so sweet - take that Lam

Fordy was brilliant in that last set of plays and big credit to Martin for taking on Weise's 1st receiver role too...

Big game by Genge too, so all doubts about commitment gone there which is great.

Always kept gifting them points then getting back within a score by sheer guts, made for a very entertaining game for the neutral!!

Downsides were Green pens and Weise yellow - will he ever learn?

No hook try was an absolute joke by the officials and the TMO seemed determined to rule out Nadolos try so fair play to Foley for sticking to his guns on that one (and that's one good reason for Nadolo to have a big tummy - so he can ground the ball with it = classic from the TMO )

IBWT

Well done Tigers and a Happy Christmas to all

[Goshengareth]

What a win and what a try. Who offloaded to Dolly? Reffell?

And Dolly's line and pass first class. Tbf I don't think Montoya would have executed it as successfully.

Just need a negative pcr test to fly home and make it a perfect Christmas

[loretta]

What a win and what a try. Who offloaded to Dolly? Reffell?

And Dolly's line and pass first class. Tbf I don't think Montoya would have executed it as successfully.

Just need a negative pcr test to fly home and make it a perfect Christmas

I believe the pass to Dolly was from Steward. Dolly was faultless in how he played that role.

[sam16111986]

What a win and what a try. Who offloaded to Dolly? Reffell?

And Dolly's line and pass first class. Tbf I don't think Montoya would have executed it as successfully.

Just need a negative pcr test to fly home and make it a perfect Christmas

Steward with the offload. Good line and offload from him, using those long arms to good effect.

[LE18]

I was really getting fed up with our same old kicking tactic, we were poor at it, and sides know its coming. How come we wait until we go down to 14 men and start running with the ball and then create 2 overlaps, why don't we do it more? We looked so much better in those last minutes, Ford probably ran with the ball more in that moment than he has all season, lets run it more, draw the man and offload.

We weren't poor with our kicking we caused Bristol problems. See Nadolo's try for starters, all built on us kicking, challenging and then using the territory. Same tactic means we hammered them in the first half, trying to play around halfway resulted in them scoring when otherwise they'd created nothing.

In the last few minutes Bristol were dead on their feet, line speed had gone. The tactics and our bench had worn them down. We played exactly like we did at the end of the game at the start of the game and got nowhere when the Bristol defence was fresh. We just needed to grind them down and take the intensity out of their defence. Take Thacker for example, for at least an hour maybe more of that game his role was to man mark Ford and rush out of the defensive line whenever possible to force him to make an early decision. End of the game, no hooker subbed on and Thacker's barely moving off the line like the rest of the starting Bristol forwards. Ford does brilliantly to move the tired Bristol defence around and our fresher forwards keep them away from the breakdown so have the time to do so. That wasn't so easy at the start of the game.

Completely agree Sam

I wish I could see it exactly like that, we can be brilliant like the last few minutes, i'm really fed up with 79 minutes of kicking it up in the air, we were not very good at catching our kicks yesterday, and then waiting until the very last second to produce brilliant handling and ball retention. It would have taken a genius to predict that Briz wouldn't tire until 79 minutes, in fact there were only 10 seconds left of normal time before we did it. Great win, great attitude shown but there were loads of times during the game when we were not at our best.

[sapajo]

We weren't poor with our kicking we caused Bristol problems. See Nadolo's try for starters, all built on us kicking, challenging and then using the territory. Same tactic means we hammered them in the first half, trying to play around halfway resulted in them scoring when otherwise they'd created nothing.

In the last few minutes Bristol were dead on their feet, line speed had gone. The tactics and our bench had worn them down. We played exactly like we did at the end of the game at the start of the game and got nowhere when the Bristol defence was fresh. We just needed to grind them down and take the intensity out of their defence. Take Thacker for example, for at least an hour maybe more of that game his role was to man mark Ford and rush out of the defensive line whenever possible to force him to make an early decision. End of the game, no hooker subbed on and Thacker's barely moving off the line like the rest of the starting Bristol forwards. Ford does brilliantly to move the tired Bristol defence around and our fresher forwards keep them away from the breakdown so have the time to do so. That wasn't so easy at the start of the game.

Completely agree Sam

I wish I could see it exactly like that, we can be brilliant like the last few minutes, i'm really fed up with 79 minutes of kicking it up in the air, we were not very good at catching our kicks yesterday, and then waiting until the very last second to produce brilliant handling and ball retention. It would have taken a genius to predict that Briz wouldn't tire until 79 minutes, in fact there were only 10 seconds left of normal time before we did it. Great win, great attitude shown but there were loads of times during the game when we were not at our best.

Well our kicking game is in a different league compared to where Murphy left. It makes perfect sense not to try and play rugby out of your own half. Strangely I hated the box kick fest deployed under Murphy as it was pathetic as no one ever bothered chasing. Now when we do box kick we chase and Ford deploys his weaponised spiral bomb. At the end of the day like it or not the fact is our kicking game is an essential pillar to our success this season.

[RagingBull]

Thought Wigglesworth created a lot of control when he came on, playing better than he did last season.

[westwinds31]

I have to say again how good Porter is/was. Ok, the try was an easy finish by his standards.Not flashy, just does the right thing 99% of the time. These are the guys we should be hanging onto.

[sam16111986]

We weren't poor with our kicking we caused Bristol problems. See Nadolo's try for starters, all built on us kicking, challenging and then using the territory. Same tactic means we hammered them in the first half, trying to play around halfway resulted in them scoring when otherwise they'd created nothing.

In the last few minutes Bristol were dead on their feet, line speed had gone. The tactics and our bench had worn them down. We played exactly like we did at the end of the game at the start of the game and got nowhere when the Bristol defence was fresh. We just needed to grind them down and take the intensity out of their defence. Take Thacker for example, for at least an hour maybe more of that game his role was to man mark Ford and rush out of the defensive line whenever possible to force him to make an early decision. End of the game, no hooker subbed on and Thacker's barely moving off the line like the rest of the starting Bristol forwards. Ford does brilliantly to move the tired Bristol defence around and our fresher forwards keep them away from the breakdown so have the time to do so. That wasn't so easy at the start of the game.

Completely agree Sam

I wish I could see it exactly like that, we can be brilliant like the last few minutes, i'm really fed up with 79 minutes of kicking it up in the air, we were not very good at catching our kicks yesterday, and then waiting until the very last second to produce brilliant handling and ball retention. It would have taken a genius to predict that Briz wouldn't tire until 79 minutes, in fact there were only 10 seconds left of normal time before we did it. Great win, great attitude shown but there were loads of times during the game when we were not at our best.

Yes we weren't at our best but we did go through phases in the first half. A lot of phases at that most of them in the Bristol 22. The fresh Bristol defence kept us out. Then we tried to play ball in hand on halfway and an error from Wells sees Bristol score.

I don't think we are at the place in the Borthwick evolution nor at the right time of year to be playing a lot ball in hand. For us it doesn't work reliably where as our kicking game does.

Bristol were tiring long before they last 10 seconds it was just difficult to take advantage of with 14 men after the Weise yellow card. Particularly as Weise was our best ball carrier all game. When we finally stopped giving away penalties and got into their half of the field our fresher players were telling. Unlike the first half Bristol didn't have the intensity to repel us.

[ourla]

Kicking a lot is what has got us to 10 and O.

Coming from an ex-fly half, there is definitely nothing wrong with kicking! I just felt that yesterday, we had an over-reliance on it, and we could have mixed it up a little more.There were many times when we could have, and arguably, should have run the ball. One example would be in the second half after a great run by Wiese, Fordy kicked the ball out in the full, when there were players available.

On the commentary I remember them saying that Bristol players had all got sucked in and we had them outnumbered wide but Ford stuck to the game plan and kicked. So in that regard yes, there were the odd occasions were we could/should have run rather than kicked. All I am saying is that overall the plan is working very well and yes by all means let's look at (more) occasions where we can deviate but overall we doing pretty good. Must always strive for a bit better of course.

[RunTigerRun]

I have to say again how good Porter is/was. Ok, the try was an easy finish by his standards.Not flashy, just does the right thing 99% of the time. These are the guys we should be hanging onto.

Couldn’t agree more! His determination and tenacity is a credit to his hard work and character. More finds like him and Potter and Dolly would serve the squad well with any potential cap squeezes.

[mol2]

Completely ignoring Sheedy sliding in with no attempt at a tackle

Agree - you can’t be trying to wrap your arms in a tackle when your back is to the player.
Arguably the call upstairs should have been to adjudicate if this was a try by Nadolo or a penalty try.