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

[RichieB]

Well that was a roller coaster of a game. Only just calmed down really. Perhaps like a lot of people, I was screaming at the T.V. for Ford to fall back for the drop-goal at the end. Have to applaud them though, that takes some guts to go for the W.

Wiese indiscretions a growing concern and I imagine the coaching staff will be thinking about whether he can change.

I know Moroni did play well, but I think Genge should have got player of the match. I see Genge voted fans favourite.

Literally a 10 out of 10 for guts, stamina and determination.

[OakhamTiger32]

Well that was a roller coaster of a game. Only just calmed down really. Perhaps like a lot of people, I was screaming at the T.V. for Ford to fall back for the drop-goal at the end.

Really? There is no way I wanted the drop goal today. I really wanted to beat Bristol, even more so after what happened last season. Bristol aren’t in competition with us so what did we have to lose really? Go for the try and fail we get 1 point, go for the drop goal and succeed we get 2 points.. go for the win it’s an invaluable 4 points! had we gone for the drop goal we would have kept our unbeaten run going but I would have been disappointed had we gone for the draw. Shows what this team is about and perhaps I’m in the minority here but I was sat there thinking the complete opposite.. “don’t go for the drop goal! Go for the win!”

[RichieB]

Well that was a roller coaster of a game. Only just calmed down really. Perhaps like a lot of people, I was screaming at the T.V. for Ford to fall back for the drop-goal at the end.

Really? There is no way I wanted the drop goal today. I really wanted to beat Bristol, even more so after what happened last season. Bristol aren’t in competition with us so what did we have to lose really? Go for the try and fail we get 1 point, go for the drop goal and succeed we get 2 points.. go for the win it’s an invaluable 4 points! had we gone for the drop goal we would have kept our unbeaten run going but I would have been disappointed had we gone for the draw. Shows what this team is about and perhaps I’m in the minority here but I was sat there thinking the complete opposite.. “don’t go for the drop goal! Go for the win!”

Agree now I know what happened, but when we’ve endured so many relatively fallow years in recent times it is easy to slip back into the mentality that we should at least try to get something from the game. It might be a paucity mindset, but so long spent being grateful for a few crumbs. I mean 10 out of 10 in the Prem is literally incredible from where we were.

[LE18]

The whole game we were kicking. When we had to keep it in our hands, we scored...

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. Bristol did that a lot, so why cant we do it more? As for the scrums.
You should have seen the Briz fans faces, it was an unbelievable finish to game we were never in front until that last second and never looked as though we could win. Is Weise becoming the new Lavanini yellow card machine, it looked terrible in real life. Anyway we won, very poor display errors after errors, now got a couple of days to explore. Briz fans were singing all game "Gengie coming home".

[Offside]

Piatau landed on the line when he knocked it forward so it should have been out lineout. No sure how the commentators could see otherwise. Not sure the TMO could rule on it though.

The age of that scrum and the young players getting this experience the best part of all this.

[WhitecapTiger]

Bristol did that a lot, so why cant we do it more?

Bristol lost. By design or luck, we got there in the end, sometimes, just sometimes, does it really matter how?

we were never in front until that last second

We were first on the board and led 3-0

Briz fans were singing all game "Gengie coming home".

They're correct, he is.

[LE18]

Bristol did that a lot, so why cant we do it more?

Bristol lost. By design or luck, we got there in the end, sometimes, just sometimes, does it really matter how?

we were never in front until that last second

We were first on the board and led 3-0

Briz fans were singing all game "Gengie coming home".

They're correct, he is.

Sorry Whitecap, I had forgotten that, I got carried away in the frenzy of the win and their fans reactions, great to be able to celebrate whilst down here in their territory, please forgive me.

[ourla]

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

[Pellsey]

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.

[OakhamTiger32]

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

Agreed. And 15 wins in a row in all competitions. Yes I would love to see us play rugby like Bristol of the last few seasons but I’d sooner be top of the table with 10 out of 10 than 12th with 3 wins and 7 losses which is where Bristol are currently languishing! They keep the ball in hand far more than us but as this season is proving you need more aspects to your game than ball in hand running rugby.

When Quins won the league last season they didn’t play a single game in the rain (if the BT Sport commentary is to be believed) and on wet and windy days the flair doesn’t usually work. I think our tactics are fine and clearly they are working given our fantastic run. I’d much rather watch this brand of Tigers than that of the last 2 seasons so massive steps in the right direction for me

[sam16111986]

The whole game we were kicking. When we had to keep it in our hands, we scored...

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.

[OakhamTiger32]

The whole game we were kicking. When we had to keep it in our hands, we scored...

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

[Robespierre]

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

[JayC2]

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

Never happened .....

[fentiger]

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

Must have been a wind up!