Leicester vs Saracens

[G.K]

Viljoen was doing most of the kicking from hands for pens right?

Maybe he hasn't fully adjusted to the lower sea level compared to compared to Bloemfontein which is where I believe he did most of his in game kicking at till he was signed by Western Province?

So what the hell was he doing during pre-season then? It should only take a decent kicker 20 minutes of practice to re-calibrate. Sorry but for me he looks like just another journeyman from the SH.

But it was his first game at WR.

So what you are suggesting is that Tigers coaching is so useless that they didn't give him any time to practice some kicks on the WR pitch until an actual match. What the hell do they do Monday to Friday?

[Tiglon]

The Saracens team was stronger than ours, no blame on the players there. Worcester was a different matter.

I'm not making personal attacks on players such as Refell, these young inexperienced guys are doing their best and well done to them, some of them are coming along nicely. However, doesn't mean they're good enough to get us to mid table, because there are other players of a similar age at other clubs performing much better.

Not expecting players like Reid to be international stars. However, again, the reality at the moment is that even at this point in the other season most other Premiership club have players performing at a higher level. It's not necessarily the players' fault, it could be coaching, or that they need time to adjust, but the result is the same - not good enough.

It's all well and good saying "Youngster X is a good player and deserves his spot" but if most other teams have youngsters who are performing better then the result is that Tigers will still be near the bottom of the table come May. Again, I'm not having a go at players on a personal level, they have all achieved much more than I have after all, I'm just describing the reality as I see it.

I haven't seen Tigers come up with many answers in the last few years so I suspect the hope that the analysts will figure it all out this week is a little naive.

[mol2]

There seems to be no playing structure for the youngsters to step in to.

Sarries had lots of players out too but the play to a team plan and structure for them to slot into. Desperate to be back on their feet to make the tackle or to get back to their place in the defensive line.

Ours look like they are slotting into a clueless chaotic structure with poor basics like tackling, catching and passing.

As for Geordie why would you make inexperienced (and demonstrably way below the standard of the Premiership) into your director of rugby? That would need someone with the coaching experience and vision to integrate the players in the different squad levels and put the plan for the coaches to work to.
It would be likened to making your junior salesman sales director and when he fails chairman.

No just accept the experiment has failed. Assuming Borthwick arrives it might be better to leave him and Mike Ford scope to decide where their coaching roles fall and appoint one or more coaches of their choosing.
Effectively Borthwick would be head coach/DOR with Ford as defensive coach or is Ford DOR and Borthwick forwards/defence coach.

[LE18]

Like I said earlier, Wigglesworth killed us with his box kicks, you could see/sense the panic on our players faces every time the ball went up in the air, he saw it and hey presto he repeated it over and over. We had no clue how to deal with it until Kalamafoni came on.
Whilst our youngsters got valuable game time I really don't think they are going to be future stars for us, we should have started with Kalamafoni and Harrison and the more I see of him, Hardwick he is fine and has to start at 10. Sadly we lost Spencer early again, was it a shoulder dislocation, also Eastmond left early as usual, I have always thought him a good player but he really is too fragile and surely wont be retained long.
All in all, a very very poor showing.

[Wayne Richardson Fan Club]

So what the hell was he doing during pre-season then? It should only take a decent kicker 20 minutes of practice to re-calibrate. Sorry but for me he looks like just another journeyman from the SH.

But it was his first game at WR.

So what you are suggesting is that Tigers coaching is so useless that they didn't give him any time to practice some kicks on the WR pitch until an actual match. What the hell do they do Monday to Friday?

I would suggest it looks rather different with people in the stands.

[G.K]

But it was his first game at WR.

So what you are suggesting is that Tigers coaching is so useless that they didn't give him any time to practice some kicks on the WR pitch until an actual match. What the hell do they do Monday to Friday?

I would suggest it looks rather different with people in the stands.

[Wayne Richardson Fan Club]

So what you are suggesting is that Tigers coaching is so useless that they didn't give him any time to practice some kicks on the WR pitch until an actual match. What the hell do they do Monday to Friday?

I would suggest it looks rather different with people in the stands.

Nescafe

[westwinds31]

On BT Sport today, the camera panned in at half time to the 2 dressing rooms
Sarries were all ears to their Coach. they looked enthused...
Panning to the home dressing room, it showed players sitting isolated, and then a very telling shot of Murphy flitting across, with not a word said.
Am sorry, he was a great player, but our coaching and skills have totally disintegrated since he has been involved

....and you make that assumption based on about 20 seconds of BT changing room footage ?!

[fortysix]

Westwind, think the vast majority on this Forum think Murphy Bakewell Blake and Deacon should be binned--------------asap !!!!!!

[JP14]

I think Bakewell’s input is finally bearing fruit after the dead cat’s bounce when he first arrived, our lineout stats are impressive and our maul is improving, I am of the opinion that Saracens stopped our maul illegally on Sunday. I would like to see him retained.

[fentiger]

I think Bakewell’s input is finally bearing fruit after the dead cat’s bounce when he first arrived, our lineout stats are impressive and our maul is improving, I am of the opinion that Saracens stopped our maul illegally on Sunday. I would like to see him retained.

... and our defence is better, at least we're not shipping tries like last season (hopefully I've not spoken too soon ).

[sam16111986]

I think Bakewell’s input is finally bearing fruit after the dead cat’s bounce when he first arrived, our lineout stats are impressive and our maul is improving, I am of the opinion that Saracens stopped our maul illegally on Sunday. I would like to see him retained.

... and our defence is better, at least we're not shipping tries like last season (hopefully I've not spoken too soon ).

Last season the flood gates would have opened and we'd have conceded a lot of points. Two or three big turnovers on our line following a lot of Sarries pressure was good to see.

[sam16111986]

sam16111986 - I appreciate you are trying to pick some good bits from the bones, it is after all the modern way to try and put a positive spin on things. However, the aim of the game is to win, not to gain a few points for artistic merit and Tigers simply aren't good enough to do that. Take our internationals out of the equation and we look like a Chamionship side, which is what we may well be if this continues, it's got progressively worse every season for the last 4/5 seasons now.

I think you have to look at why a team loses. We lost because our half backs failed to put is in the right parts of the pitch and were tactically naive, too often kicking at the wrong times with poor accuracy.

A lot on here are moaning there's no change to last season and there has been a change, certain aspects are working better. We desperately need some flair in attack though, more than 15 phases in their 22 at one point and we didn't look like getting over.

[kk20gb30]

I think Bakewell’s input is finally bearing fruit after the dead cat’s bounce when he first arrived, our lineout stats are impressive and our maul is improving, I am of the opinion that Saracens stopped our maul illegally on Sunday. I would like to see him retained.

..this could be argued though would prefer to see less single runners hitting brick walls in open play , together with more pick and go in the oppositions 22.Set piece looks to be improving though.
In passing Kalamafoni took some serious grief on here last season.Think we saw what he brings to the table when he came on Vs Sarries. Much underrated player.

[JP14]

I think Bakewell’s input is finally bearing fruit after the dead cat’s bounce when he first arrived, our lineout stats are impressive and our maul is improving, I am of the opinion that Saracens stopped our maul illegally on Sunday. I would like to see him retained.

..this could be argued though would prefer to see less single runners hitting brick walls in open play , together with more pick and go in the oppositions 22.Set piece looks to be improving though.
In passing Kalamafoni took some serious grief on here last season.Think we saw what he brings to the table when he came on Vs Sarries. Much underrated player.

Perhaps but there were glimpses of forward interplay, the aforementioned Gigena burst is a good example, and with Borthwick's input we shall hopefully see emulations of what the Englands forwards do.