LEICESTER TIGERS 2023/24 - Crocodile McKeller: Men at Work

[TigerFeetSteve]

I'd say Woodward is fast approaching and the club probably expecting him to overtake Cokansigna.

During his tenure Cokansigna has been hampered with lack of gametime. Between some unfortunate injuries (both to him and other centres) meant that even when fit he seemed to find himself as a reserve not being able to string gametime together. (Though he's still had more minutes for us per season than at LI)

Woodward is fairly regularly now starting at 12 in the Championship which means I think we're anticipating him developing, he's 20 atm so 2 and a bit years younger than Cokansigna.


We also have Cusick to throw into the mix a couple of months older than Woodward, more a 13/wing though than Woodward who I think was more a 12 who also played Fly Half.

[Wayne Richardson Fan Club]

I see the surname Vesty in the "M" shirt for the Academy...another generation?

If Porter is fit for the PRC semifinal I would play him & whichever of Cusick or Woodward is deemed the nearest to first team level.

[Rugbygramps]

I see the surname Vesty in the "M" shirt for the Academy...another generation?

If Porter is fit for the PRC semifinal I would play him & whichever of Cusick or Woodward is deemed the nearest to first team level.

Shilcock, Woodward, Porter would be a very effective midfield combination imo

[LE18]

Our use of the ball when we have it, is for me the biggest issue. We are to obvious, particularly in our forward carries. There's very little to no interplay between our forwards and it just makes it easy for the opposition to number up.

Adding MORE POWER doesn't feel like the answer. It's not a bad idea but in isolation I don't seeing it being a golden bullet.

Personally I'd like us to look for an 8 with a broader skillset. Ideally someone who can truck it up but also act as that forward playmaker style player. Currently Montoya has the best hands in the forwards by a distance. Having a couple of ball carriers who can legitimately mix it up both carry and also bring on another forward on an angle. The 8 replacement then doesn't need to be a Jasper style menace ball in hand because with any luck we can build up an attack where he isn't having to crash into two or three defenders on every carry. Having an attack coach to drill this into the players is also paramount.

Leinster's carriers aren't individually more devastating than Weise. Their attack and the interplay between them often send the ball carriers into a half gap or a solo tackler. Just gives them momentum and playing with momentum makes life a lot easier.

Now Vaea Fifita might well fit that role but the last rumour I heard was that he wanted out of Scarlets to head back to New Zealand.

No point in having more playmakers when no one can either give them space to make the playmaking or run off it.
Leinster may not have someone of Wiese carrying ability but the other 7 forwards are pretty much all better carriers nearly.

Like lets be real who is going to make bigger impact running of a playmaker?
Cronin, Heyes, Wells, Reffell
or
Porter, Furlong, McCarthy, JVDF
They create their momentum by having 8 forwards who can at least make the gainline with every carry nearly.

Isn't the estimate that the Leinster salary cap is 10m Euros though. They are an international side as much as they are a club side. We're unlikely to stack well against them.

I said it wasn't a golden bullet answer, not that we shouldn't look to add some additional firepower. If we can recruit a couple of mobile monsters in the forwards we should.

A forward that can help facilitate some carrying at pace and stop out ball carriers being gang tackled will help make the most of the carriers we have. We've seen Mako do it brilliantly for England and Sarries for years.

If Cronin is out the door then we do have definite cap to spend at loosehead. If we are also seeing van Wyk going it would be great to see a former LI double with Goodrick-Clarke and Fischetti both coming in. Carrying in the prop department would certainly help, I liked the KC idea of adding Alo as he'd be a fairly cheap addition and with Hurd in the Scotland picture, Heyes in the England picture and Cole winding down Alo as an impact sub makes sense.

Adding More Power was very very good for La Rochelle they ran all over us forwards and backs, I'd like some of that Power.

[jgriffin]

Realism would see that we will never have the resources nor the advantages of Leinster or most French sides. The cap is not £10m nor do we have the luxury of having a core international side (how many caps?) available for Europe and any crunch matches, while only playing 15 games a season (less injuries, better recovery, more time to train etc). Time to stop berating the club for stuff beyond their ability to influence. The only two issues for me are skills and attack.

[RagingBull]

They have a fantastic setup, but they wouldn't be able to keep all those academy graduates with a £5.4m salary cap.

Pack aside, the money (and promise of international pathway) allows them to bring in Gibson-Park and Lowe, without whom they do have greater weaknesses.

Imagine a Midlands provincial team with €10m to spend on player wages. You'd have all the best current Tigers products, plus the Curry brothers, Ollie Lawrence, Fin Smith, Dingwall and potentially many more. And they'd all stay for most of their careers, playing together day in day out for club and country.

The South East, South West and Northern provinces wouldn't be too bad either...

IDK about that.
I think most would've stayed which player that played on the weekend would leave Ireland chances?

Let's be real we have a decent squad, I mean our fully fit starting XV only Hanro isn't a international.
we just need to decide if we can upgrade some areas in sacrifice for depth trusting some younger players.

For example
Say could we sign a really good big impact lock/6 cover for the cap of Carter, Rogerson, Cracknell and then plug the remaining depth by trusting Carnduff and Ilione?
Instead of Cokanasiga do you trust Woodward.

Yeah lots of interesting questions.

It seems we don't trust Cokanasiga anyway, so we might as well let him leave and not trust Woodward instead.

Lock and back row are a bit more difficult. We have to rely on that depth regularly so Carnduff and Ilione would need to be ready. The indications are that we don't think they are just yet.

But that's sort of my thing who do we know? Carnduff maybe a year shy but Ilione is 22 this season.
Something Leinster are quite good at is starting to give players gametime at around 21/22.

Ilione didn't look great v Exeter but who did?

Borthwick was lucky in that he had the free half a season to just play everyone and see who looked good.
But like Chessum and Martin both started to get game time at that age around then as pressure seemed to grow the chances for the next gen seemed to get less.

Obviously i'm not advocating playing young players for just the hell of it they need to earn it but Ilione has earned a shot of a few games in a row IMO.

[GB72]

This is the problem with the league and cup set ups. Every game is a must win. In the URC Leinster and the like get a number of matches where they can try out younger players but I am not sure that we have that luxury. Some of that is out own making with the poor start to the season but every game since has pretty much been a must win.

[Tiglon]

I agree with you both, RagingBull and GB72.

Of course it's easy for us to say "play the youngsters" but we don't see them in training and until they play we don't have as good an idea of whether they are ready as the coaches do.

I have been disappointed Ilione hasn't been on the field more, I really hope he is given more opportunities in the coming months. Particularly when Reffell is unavailable, we don't have anyone else who will shine at 7 so what have we got to lose?

It sounds like we have plenty of youngsters performing well in the Championship, so perhaps we will find out more about McKellar's attitude to giving them a shot as we go into next season.

It may be that he wants to hold off until we have a team that is more settled in the new style of play, to give them a better chance to succeed. It does seem that consistency of selection has been a priority of his, and it would make sense to achieve that before throwing in the kids. Let's get the first 15 playing consistently well, and then gradually expose the promising youngsters - makes sense to me, if that is the plan.

[ay2oh]

I agree with you both, RagingBull and GB72.

Of course it's easy for us to say "play the youngsters" but we don't see them in training and until they play we don't have as good an idea of whether they are ready as the coaches do.

I have been disappointed Ilione hasn't been on the field more, I really hope he is given more opportunities in the coming months. Particularly when Reffell is unavailable, we don't have anyone else who will shine at 7 so what have we got to lose?

It sounds like we have plenty of youngsters performing well in the Championship, so perhaps we will find out more about McKellar's attitude to giving them a shot as we go into next season.

It may be that he wants to hold off until we have a team that is more settled in the new style of play, to give them a better chance to succeed. It does seem that consistency of selection has been a priority of his, and it would make sense to achieve that before throwing in the kids. Let's get the first 15 playing consistently well, and then gradually expose the promising youngsters - makes sense to me, if that is the plan.

Agree entirely

[sam16111986]

No point in having more playmakers when no one can either give them space to make the playmaking or run off it.
Leinster may not have someone of Wiese carrying ability but the other 7 forwards are pretty much all better carriers nearly.

Like lets be real who is going to make bigger impact running of a playmaker?
Cronin, Heyes, Wells, Reffell
or
Porter, Furlong, McCarthy, JVDF
They create their momentum by having 8 forwards who can at least make the gainline with every carry nearly.

Isn't the estimate that the Leinster salary cap is 10m Euros though. They are an international side as much as they are a club side. We're unlikely to stack well against them.

I said it wasn't a golden bullet answer, not that we shouldn't look to add some additional firepower. If we can recruit a couple of mobile monsters in the forwards we should.

A forward that can help facilitate some carrying at pace and stop out ball carriers being gang tackled will help make the most of the carriers we have. We've seen Mako do it brilliantly for England and Sarries for years.

If Cronin is out the door then we do have definite cap to spend at loosehead. If we are also seeing van Wyk going it would be great to see a former LI double with Goodrick-Clarke and Fischetti both coming in. Carrying in the prop department would certainly help, I liked the KC idea of adding Alo as he'd be a fairly cheap addition and with Hurd in the Scotland picture, Heyes in the England picture and Cole winding down Alo as an impact sub makes sense.

Adding More Power was very very good for La Rochelle they ran all over us forwards and backs, I'd like some of that Power.

I'd like some of their attacking structure. They play a brilliantly chaotic style of rugby. O'Gara has added a layer of game management over the top of it as well which just makes them incredibly unpredictable.

As you say they've got masses of power but they use it so well. They are a great team to watch.

[sam16111986]

Owen Farrell heading to Racing along with Demba Ba and Romain Taofifenua is apparently causing Racing to have to release a few players ahead of next season, a full season of Kolisi as well, to stay under the salary cap.

Rumours are Christian Wade won't be retained and possibly interesting to us it's rumoured that Fijian number 8 Kitione Kamikamica (four tries in his last four starts, including one against Bath) and 6ft8 20+ stone Kiwi lock Veikoso Poloniati as well (he might be more of a project signing).

[RunTigerRun]

Owen Farrell heading to Racing along with Demba Ba and Romain Taofifenua is apparently causing Racing to have to release a few players ahead of next season, a full season of Kolisi as well, to stay under the salary cap.

Rumours are Christian Wade won't be retained and possibly interesting to us it's rumoured that Fijian number 8 Kitione Kamikamica (four tries in his last four starts, including one against Bath) and 6ft8 20+ stone Kiwi lock Veikoso Poloniati as well (he might be more of a project signing).

Wouldn’t say no to either Kamikamica or Poloniati at the right price. Would give us different options, especially Poloniati!

[RagingBull]

This is the problem with the league and cup set ups. Every game is a must win. In the URC Leinster and the like get a number of matches where they can try out younger players but I am not sure that we have that luxury. Some of that is out own making with the poor start to the season but every game since has pretty much been a must win.

I feel thats my biggest gripe with hindsight.
We had a slow start and didn't even benefit from giving the younger players game time.

[TigerFeetSteve]

https://twitter.com/dragonsrugby/status ... 9FtQg&s=19

Wainwright is not joining us then...

[markharbtiger]

I do wonder if Mike Brown has any interest in coaching? I'm thinking that if so, the same kind of deal with WW (part-time player) might attract him at some point.
I say this primarily as the part of our game that IMO needs help is developing our backs play...