Tigers v Exeter (A) - Premiership - Saturday 23rd December 2023 - KO 3-00pm

[CrumblingTerrace]

Pollard is imperious. Until he can't hit a barn door.

Cole is unmovable. Until he gets moved backwards.

Steward never drops anything. Until he drops a boat load.

The last few weeks have been very confusing!

[PJM]

I don't think the backs managed to string more than 3 passes together before dropping it or going to ground.

[Tigersunited]

I’m mystified by this performance. My sense is that after 5 consecutive wins we expected to win this at a canter. DM is new to the prem and English rugby - he needs to learn quickly, if there was any arrogance this result should beat it out of them. Jury is out on him, great squad, this and Bristol performance should never happen with the resources we have.

[nicmattyg]

The performances haven’t been good for a while despite the results. The wins have covered some of the cracks I feel.

We’ll do well to finish top 4 at very best this season in our current and given the start we’ve had. Hardly surprising with a whole new coaching set up.

There is still plenty of the season to go yet, and still time to find some form, so I’m keeping the faith for now!

[sapajo]

It's unbelievable that Tigers with it's glorious history still after many seasons has no effective attack through our backs. I look at our competitors and the majority do have an effective and dangerous attack. We now have the players and strength in depth but in each match it's as if they have never played a game together. I thought this would change under Mckellar and in the premiership Cup it looked like it truly was. But it's dissapeared just as quick as it appeared a glimpse of what our attack could be.

[Scott1]

Murphyesque from all accounts

[sapajo]

Murphyesque from all accounts

Strangely enough I saw him the other week

[westwinds31]

Two things that are worrying. Firstly, there appeared to be 15 strangers on the pitch from Leicester. No visible game plan, aside from the usual kick and chase, but once that doesn’t work, we have no response. Then there’s the physical element, out muscled in every aspect in the set piece and tight exchanges. Not great.

[YoWaGoWan]

Terrible
Inept
Gutless
Emotionless
Regardless
Sluggish
This is what Tigers stood for to me today,i cannot believe the performance i saw.

[Bptiger25]

Well that was extremely poor my three main areas were .
Defence was very very poor 1st half
Kicking was disgraceful
No idea about running the ball and when we tried we dropped it .
Why the hell do u kick to a team that wants to run the ball , think the coach has to carry a lot of the blame with what ever his game plan was , because I couldn’t see any plan other than kick kick kick

[KiwiTig]

Long drive back
Not the best of days
Poor seats obscured by a pylon (some might say that was a blessing)
We just did show up as a group in particular the backs.
The wind did play its part in the first half and made kicking difficult and you could genuinely see the ball wobble in flight which perhaps excuses some of the “catching”
Will have to watch again tomorrow on TV but we were poor today
Merry Xmas

[Mayocaz]

Today was a beauty of sport moment. A far inferior team somehow hammering a far better side. It happens. How we bounce back is more important. Exeter were terrible. They’ll play far better this season and get nothing. They’ve have had a right touch today. We’ve just had one of them days. Please don’t do it again for a while.

[Tiglon]

Not sure where to start with that, as said by others Exeter were very poor but Tigers were worse.

Whitely was good IMO, whereas Pollard probably had the worst performance of his career - must have been ill/injured?! Surely?

Chessum not great, I think he really needs to work on his handling, and probably isn't a 6.

Ilione will hopefully learn from the experience, looked like he was going through the motions at times, little intensity.

We sorely missed Hanro and Reffell, particularly in defence.

I don't think the officials were great, but no bearing on the result. When Wiese was stopped just short after breaking through, the last man made a clear no arms shoulder charge at his knees to bring him down - penalty try all day long. I think the ref lost interest in the scrum and the second half the Exeter props had their elbows on the floor every time.

The good news? I'm not sure it's possible for Tigers to play quite that badly again...

It feels like the season is in the balance, could go either way depending on the next couple of matches.

[sam16111986]

It is worth remembering that Chiefs haven't lost a home game in 14 months. It's something like 23 consecutive wins at Sandy Park now.

First half was dreadful. We clearly had tactics but they were well off. Chiefs looked more than ready to deal with our crossfield kick routine. We then invited wave after wave of Chiefs attack on ourselves through our inaccuracies. Chiefs are a great side when it comes to hanging onto the ball and going through the phases and that's what they did. Eventually the defence buckled. After the nightmare opening 10 mins out defence actually withstood Chiefs very well.

We won the second half but were still ridiculously wasteful. Some of the attacking moves we tried looked like they could be the foundations for something really good but you want to see foundations of attacking play at the start of the season and something way more polished by Christmas.

[WhitecapTiger]

I bet the players will be kicking themselves

They probably missed