Tigers v Gloucester - Premiership Cup Final - Friday 15th March 2024 - KO:7-45pm

[Ian Cant]

I’ve seen Tigers lose many games home and away but I gave tonight a miss as I’m off to Newcastle, Saints and Sale, but considering it was a Final I too was disappointed with the performance and the lack of ideas on how to score tries.
Where is Freddie Burns when we need him: great guy and would try something different( it didn’t always work!) to unlock defences.
I switched to to England Under 20s v France. Wow! That cheered me up.
DM will hopefully see this as a huge kick up the backside and it will be great to cheer the lads on next week: now against a very confident Gloucester team.
I really do hope England win tomorrow BUT please, no injuries to our players!

[Ashurstwoodtiger]

Was the man in yellow Jack Makeitup the well known TMO Tiger Hunter? Answers on a Post Card c/o Gallagher Rugby and PRL

[cheltexile]

DM looks fundamentally out of his depth. Still no anwser from the CEO about why we are making do with a chunk of the coaching staff missing.

Bright stuff from Phil C, Illione, Shillcock and a few others who came on and actually seemed to care about the result.

[sam16111986]

but if DM thinks that is enough he is sadly mistaken.

Yeah, when the TV coverage cut to DM in the second half he didn't look like he thought it was enough. He looked more than slightly peeved.

[sapajo]

DM looks fundamentally out of his depth. Still no anwser from the CEO about why we are making do with a chunk of the coaching staff missing.

Bright stuff from Phil C, Illione, Shillcock and a few others who came on and actually seemed to care about the result.

I don't believe that we are spending upto the cap and have been shocked at the re-signings of Cronin and worst of all Whiteley who cannot perform basic scrum half skills namely passing and box kicking

[Wayne Richardson Fan Club]

All Whiteley is doing is blocking Edwards progression, a genuinely bizarre resigning.

Again the inability to perform after a rest period, leasons aren't being learnt this season.

Huge amount of pressure on next Friday now.

[Retiredseven]

Dismal Game, two dismal sides, one very dismal ref.

The first 15 minutes of the second half killed us. There didn't seem to be much leadership on the field to get heads back into the right places and it all fell apart.

I don't know what happened to our scrum in the second half but speaking to Joe Heyes after the match he said he has been feeling pretty ill so i guess he started to fade - i am sure there were other factors too.

Oh well, as has been said a chance for revenge next week. I hope we go full bore with our strongest 23 to get some momentum happening.

Personally i think it's still worth giving McKellar some breathing space. I don't watch any Australian rugby so don't know what the difference in standard/intensity is; but if their national team is anything to go by.....

On the plus side the Gloucester fans sat around us were all ultra friendly and very kind to my 6 yr old boy at his first game especially when he got very upset because we were losing.

[westwinds31]

Usual overreaction on here I see. We started playing because we had to, it was desperate at that point with 10 mins to go. Discipline was poor and 2 x yellow cards = 2 tries and that was the game. Simple as that. First half was dull but we easily dealt with what they threw at us. Give them a sniff and the crowd get involved and it was all over in a flash. I thought Hanro was superb tonight…he is 8/10 every game. Well done Gloucester. My view on Mercer…..aside from one break he was average. Dropped balls, decision making awful.

[Retiredseven]

My view on Mercer…..aside from one break he was average. Dropped balls, decision making awful.

I thought that too; but not in any small part down to how tigers managed him. There were some big double hits on him especially in the first half.

[Tigersunited]

Think DM may be out off his depth, next week is a massive test of him in my mind. Players seem to have had lots of time off even though they are well rotated. Anyone else picked up on his comments in previous weeks regarding 2 or 3 day training weeks. We are looking unfit and this can’t help, all seems a bit casual and as though we the standards instilled by SB have fallen off a cliff- really hope he turns it around…..

[CrumblingTerrace]

My niggling worry with this DMK team is that we have one plan of attack: box kick and bosh. When we're physically bettering teams it's simple and effective.

But when we're not more physical (Sale, Sarries, Exeter, Europe, tonight), we're reduced to almost no threat. Just waiting for a dropped box kick, which may never come.

[Terracetiger4]

I think it’s hard to judge mckellar until he has the majority of the squad he wants and the club gives him a stable and functional coaching team to support him. All we really learnt last night was our wider squad are over hyped and a lot of them at this point need showing the door as they make little to no impact at this level anymore. A lot of aging money ball signings that are just blocking the path of academy products.

[OakhamTiger32]

Think DM may be out off his depth, next week is a massive test of him in my mind. Players seem to have had lots of time off even though they are well rotated. Anyone else picked up on his comments in previous weeks regarding 2 or 3 day training weeks. We are looking unfit and this can’t help, all seems a bit casual and as though we the standards instilled by SB have fallen off a cliff- really hope he turns it around…..

It was a massive loss losing Steve obviously but we were stripped bare losing Sir Kev and Aled at the same time so it’s not surprising it’s taking a while to settle. We need to give Dan time I reckon with his full squad to see where he is really at. I’m not a fan of the death by a thousand box kicks style either but I’m hoping once the international lads are back in the mix we might start to see a little more in the way of attacking structure. The likes of Martin, Montoya, Chessum, Cole, Cronin, Wiese, Watson, Steward, YBY, JVP is a fair list of absentees last night. The Cup side was also a mix of youngsters as it should be so I’m expecting a very different game on Fri.

In due course I’d like to see:

Cronin, Montoya, Cole, Martin, Chessum, Liebenberg, Reffell, Wiese, JvP, Pollard, OHC, Kata, Cokanasiga, Watson, Steward.

I would love to see that back line giving a few games together.. could be a winner although perhaps a little too attacking so I guess Kelly or Scott will feature

[TigerFeetSteve]

My niggling worry with this DMK team is that we have one plan of attack: box kick and bosh. When we're physically bettering teams it's simple and effective.

But when we're not more physical (Sale, Sarries, Exeter, Europe, tonight), we're reduced to almost no threat. Just waiting for a dropped box kick, which may never come.

We kicked a chunk less than them and only reverted to kicking it after a man was in the bin, then seemed to find the tactic hard to snap out of.

[westwinds31]

Glos fans around us were furious with their 9 & 10 in the first half, so much kicking. We handed that to Gloucester no question, discipline killed us and gave them a lift. Even after going so far behind we had driving lineout chances, but coughed the ball up. Agree about comments on Kelly, what’s happened to him, maybe still not fully confident following that injury ?