Tigers v Sale

[Smudge]

Mostly dire but there were some good points. Guy Thompson made three or four excellent turnovers, mining for the ball. If he can improve his linking with the threes he could resemble Neil Back. Likewise, May worked his socks off and deserves credit for his efforts. Only a forward pass to him spoilt a great try. White is far from the real deal at 20 years but I applauded the decision to use him, it is the only way he will get the experience needed. His pass is fast and direct and when he learns to snipe a bit, he will be a valuable player. The lineout was going well until Tom went off but his replacement was very poor for such an experienced player. Overall there was no lack of effort from the team and apart from being too one sided for Sale's first try, the defence was better than a factor of 5 from last week. The Exeter game showed our weekness to defending rolling mauls and drives, close in. We have obviously been working on our defence for that but they still managed to get two forwards trys. Clearly Geordan will be given time and freedom to develop the team but with so many players out and injured, it will require some patience from the supporters. Darkness comes before the dawn so let's suck up the win, however lucky it was, and go forward.

[JP14]

Thought the whole backrow performed well, as did Mike Williams he’s in some real good form at the moment. We dealt with Sale’s breakdown operators quite well.

By the way, I watched Steve Diamond’s post-match interview he refers to a fourth try that would’ve been scored if the ref hadn’t blown up for something. What was he referring to?

[Soggypitch]

Got back yesterday morning from a 2 week holiday so missed the Wuss and Sale games, luckily by the sound of it!!

I did however see most of the match yesterday on TV and the "quality" of the play was appalling at times, the commentators were actually making jokes about how poor the game was and how there were no highlights except the ref being taken out!

What's wrong with Manu? Any idea when BOC and TV will be fit? We are also missing Tait this season, again do we have any update on his injury?

Fear for next week at Twickers, but at least we ground out a win yesterday and hopefully can kick on.

[PeterB]

I saw my first game at Welford Road in 1967. I have seen many ups and downs over the years but the Worcester and Sale performances have made a grown man weep. After the first 20 mins of the Falcons game I thought there was a spark of what was to come and a return to form, but the light has gone out very quickly.
I don't normally post on the forum but I do follow it regularly, I am neither a gloom merchant nor a happy clap I am a Leicester Tigers Fan and I fear for our beloved team. I feel that unless there is significant improvement then the best we can hope this season is probably where we are now and out of the first tier in Europe. As an optimist I hope against reality.
My other concern is that if we go back to "crash and bash" rugby like we did with little effect yesterday and do not make the best of players like May they wont renew their contracts and we will lose our attractiveness.
We lost one proud boast last year in that we always finish in the top four, lets not even think about the other that we have never been out of the premiership since its foundation.
I know I sound like a real gloom merchant, I am not I sincerely believe that we are capable of being so much better than our recent games have shown. So come on lads get your act together, play like a team not 15 strangers who have met for the first time, we know and you know that you are much better than recent performances have shown please restore our faith in you.

[voice of the crumbie]

Mostly dire but there were some good points. Guy Thompson made three or four excellent turnovers, mining for the ball. If he can improve his linking with the threes he could resemble Neil Back. Likewise, May worked his socks off and deserves credit for his efforts. Only a forward pass to him spoilt a great try. White is far from the real deal at 20 years but I applauded the decision to use him, it is the only way he will get the experience needed. His pass is fast and direct and when he learns to snipe a bit, he will be a valuable player. The lineout was going well until Tom went off but his replacement was very poor for such an experienced player. Overall there was no lack of effort from the team and apart from being too one sided for Sale's first try, the defence was better than a factor of 5 from last week. The Exeter game showed our weekness to defending rolling mauls and drives, close in. We have obviously been working on our defence for that but they still managed to get two forwards trys. Clearly Geordan will be given time and freedom to develop the team but with so many players out and injured, it will require some patience from the supporters. Darkness comes before the dawn so let's suck up the win, however lucky it was, and go forward.

A reasoned and well balanced post with which I agree. I also think Owen had a good game. Shame about his injury.

We are finding out about our squad and younger players which is really important. Heyes didn't disgrace himself and with time will improve his scrummaging. I agree with your comments re Ben White and hope that his injury is not serious so that he gets another go soon. Olowofela once again showed his inexperience at this level and whether he will step up remains to be seen. There are, in my mind, doubts over his positioning (which can be coached) and his physicality both in the tackle (he let a couple go when he should have held them) and bursting through the line off Eastmond's pop up passes. He has the pace but needs to be stronger. At least he's getting a chance which I applaud. Like you I was disappointed with Ross McMillan. I also thought Harry Wells looked good in a brief appearance.

I am bemused by the rolling maul. We seem to get penalised a lot for pulling down whereas on our attacking maul the opposition who appear to be doing the same as us do not. What are they doing that we are failing to do?

[BFG]

FYI to a previous poster, I think Diamond's reference to a potential fourth try was when Sale were looking very good to score and the ref gave a dodgy looking penalty for holding on with Kitchener lay over the tackled player and ball and Thompson reaching around the side preventing the ball coming out.
Sale were really starting to put some strong phases together at that stage and looked dangerous with the ref to thank for putting a stop to them.
It was a bad decision and probably the game, even though Sale did still miss touch with a penalty that would've given them one more push for a score from a line out.
Such a poor game all round but I am not sure about the worst at WR since 1976 as BY suggested, 3-10 to Sale in 2016 was pretty dire, and I can't say I enjoyed 0-43 against Glasgow much either!
I think this is the worst Leicester team that I have seen in 25 years and I am not even sure that the Premiership has got harder looking at the quality on show yesterday as I think several teams have got worse which has brought about a cluster of middle to lower table clubs.

[Smudge]

There have been far worse Pete. Glasgow at home and who can forget the day that a :censored: club like Saracens put 50 on us at home?
The bottom line is, we won and with a greatly weakened team. It was not pretty, attractive or easy to watch but we won.
The best player in the country was sitting in the stands recovering from a ball to the head. Don't you think we would have been far more affective with him on the field? Likewise Tuillagi, Genge, Polota, Toomua, Spencer, Tait, etc etc?
As bad as it was, the team ground out a win on a day we should have lost. It has happened countless times in the past, even when we were top of the tree. There were good things if you looked for them.
I have never been a happy clapper but let's put things in perspective. The skill level was poor but Ford's kicking was mostly spot on. The defence was heaps better than last week. Most of all, there was some real "Leicester Dog" on display. New and young players had a taste of the game at Welford Road. Hard and at times grim but still a valuable experience.
If we don't get more of our first choice players back I suspect we will struggle next week but we are where we are.

No need for exaggerated optimism but definitely not for doom and gloom either.

[Scuttle]

Although away for family reasons (ours were 2 of the empty season ticket seats) we watched the recording last night and whilst it was certainly not a thing of beauty, we had a couple of decisions go our way (not always the case) and we won which is good. I saw plenty of effort and commitment that just didn't convert into the sort of performance we or the team want, to put it mildly.
However I do still believe we have a crop of good players, some very good; and if/when they do get it right I think they could beat any team on their day. I think they are low on confidence which can come back almost as quickly as it is lost, especially if they get the right feedback in the right way. Which brings me to my softer side; my self-appointed role is as a supporter and I have decided that is what I should do. Yes the results are disappointing but the players know that and I would not like to read personal criticism on a company email/website/blog if someone thought my performance was lacking; the team will read this site (especially if they are low on confidence to seek reassurance) hence why I feel I need to support support them here so they start to believe the talent that is genuinely there can deliver what we all want. We will be at HQ next week and I am still hopeful that my pre-season tenner will come good!

[MikeR]

We have only played 1 'good' team this Season and that was Exeter - the rest have been average to poor . Lots of much harder fixtures ahead and things not looking good .

[Leicestertinytiger]

There have been far worse Pete. Glasgow at home and who can forget the day that a club like Saracens put 50 on us at home?
The bottom line is, we won and with a greatly weakened team. It was not pretty, attractive or easy to watch but we won.
The best player in the country was sitting in the stands recovering from a ball to the head. Don't you think we would have been far more affective with him on the field? Likewise Tuillagi, Genge, Polota, Toomua, Spencer, Tait, etc etc?
As bad as it was, the team ground out a win on a day we should have lost. It has happened countless times in the past, even when we were top of the tree. There were good things if you looked for them.
I have never been a happy clapper but let's put things in perspective. The skill level was poor but Ford's kicking was mostly spot on. The defence was heaps better than last week. Most of all, there was some real "Leicester Dog" on display. New and young players had a taste of the game at Welford Road. Hard and at times grim but still a valuable experience.
I we don't get more of our first choice players back this week, I suspect we will struggle next week but we are ware we are.

No need for exaggerated optimism but definitely not for doom and gloom either.

Agreed we won and there was some good performances from Ford, Denton and Thompson.

But come on Sale are bottom of the table and we barely beat them. If they had a half respectable kicker they would have won.

Murphy was a poor skills coach and hasn’t shown anything more as head coach. Maybe it’s not his fault with MOC being binned after the first game but someone at Tigers made that call.

We know that Toomua and probably TPN are leaving at the end of the season which is already looking like a write off. Same as last season. So difficult at the moment to think of any reasons to be optimistic, even though we won.

[PeterB]

Thanks boys for reminding of the other two games that I would rather forget.

[Chobbsy]

We won, but that is where the good points stop, if we play like that on Saturday we will be totally embarrassed by Saints which is not a pleasant thought.

Do we have 2 fit centres?

[johnthegriff]

Find myself agreeing in the main with Smudge's posts. It was not a good came but we won, the Ref who actually was not the worst I have seen this season did get a few decisions wrong in my opinion but they went both ways and I don't think they affected the result. Austin is a decent commentator but as far as I am aware has not qualified as a referee, he picked out two decisions that he thought favoured Tigers, one I agree with him the other in front of our posts I differ but then I am not a qualified ref either and I played under very different rules than those in force today. I thought Tigers and Sale battled well and several players had decent games but largely they cancelled each other out.
Geordan Murphy took over as Head Coach in strange circumstances, he has been in place for four matches, we have taken points from each match, were unlucky at Wasps, should have beaten Worcester (a terrible 1st half) and won versus Falcons and Sharks, 13 points out of a possible 20. Not title winning form but at this stage no reason to be despondent, room for improvement which may happen as injured players return.

[Baz]

The missing list needs to include Gengey, for his out-and-out ball-carrying aggression. Get well soon!

[chris111]

Have just watched the full match recording; firstly, seeing so many empty seats is a concern...for a team lacking in confidence and form, watching home support fade away amidst a flat atmosphere. I confess to being holder of a season ticket for two of the 'no shows', but in mitigation it was an unavoidable work commitment I suspect, however, that many more of the seats were due to a lack of enthusiasm...

On to the game - having read the reports I was expecting to see something akin to a 5th XV game in terms of quality. It was certainly a scrappy one, as you'd expect from two teams struggling for form - but it had it's positives. I thought Healey et al. decided fairly early on to give up on serious analysis and coast through the match with a lazy riff about a 'dire game'.

From Tigers' perspective, I thought there were some positives:
1. George Ford. A class above anyone else on the field. Controlled kicking from the hand and accurate from the tee, variation in lines and timing on the pass - and great defensive work as well (unfairly, this is something he rarely gets credit for).
2. Ben White. Looked confident and sharp until injury - very unfortunate, and hope it's not serious
3. Line-out. Not perfect by any means but definitely improving from last year, both in attack and defence.
4. Breakdown. Again, improving all round - Denton and Thompson perhaps our most consistent performers (bar Ford) so far this season
5. Kitchener. Best individual performance for a while
6. Kalamafoni. It's been a while since we've had someone who can be relied upon to make ground in the tackle

At the risk of sounding like a happy clapper, I'm going to stick with the positives (the negatives are getting plenty of air time!). As others have commented here, would be interested to see Olowofela get a run-out on the wing. He may end up at 15 eventually, but playing there in a struggling team doesn't seem an ideal introduction to the top level. Having said that, I'd also like to see Holmes get more opportunities!