Tigers vs Gloucester (H) - Premiership - Friday 22nd March 2024 - KO:19.45

[Knightonian]

If we'd have won on Friday night it would have been the classic "papering over the cracks" scenario. Let's be blunt, we're not going to win anything this season. I get the club/coaches have to say that we're still in 2 competitions, but we're not. This isn't a new thing, we've been banging on about the attack for a couple of seasons now. I watched the Bath v Sale game and it's night and day in terms of attack. Not just the back line, it's forwards cutting lines, using footwork, offering themselves up. We are one dimensional. The ball goes out to the edges in hope rather than with any purpose. Poor OHC an Bassett are either chasing kicks of getting the ball with a defensive wall in front of them. Admittedly, was it twice when Bassett got the ball in space and made considerable metres ? When both Bath and Sale got turnover ball, they "came alive", trying to exploit the space. If they kicked, it was intelligent kicking into space, not aimlessly kicking it straight down the throat of the full back/covering player.

It's all very worrying to be honest. Newcastle away is never easy. You'd hope that they'd be a reaction to the Gloucester game, but we said that about the Prem Cup Final and it didn't happen. If the players are tired...why are they ? Are we over-training ? Not a clue but this can't go on for much longer. I never turn a Tigers game off/over on TV, but that's the closest I've been.

Completely Concur about papered cracks

It’s not about the missed 6 points which were very close - (as we can only score about 5 yards in from touch that needs to be the number 1 kicking practice)

I look at the overall performance which was at best average to poor against a team who is really struggling

If we had met Saracens on Friday night they would have thrashed us like last year at theirs.

We have the individual players who would grace most teams BUT we aren’t currently able to be more than the sum of our parts (or even near it).

Whatever we did in the break didn’t work and it’s like the start of the year again

From Friday forward we play however DMK wants and he has to own it - but with an clear knowledge that he should only have till the 6 nationals next year to make his “style” work or the experiment failed

So we role on, I will support them, I want to win but I will accept 100% commitment and blood - the Tiger way

[mol2]

Sounds a bit like the Cockers/O’Connor era.

Let’s hope we don’t slip back into the risk averse team that stifles attack and plays mediocre Kolpak journeymen because it’s safer than giving youngsters an opportunity.

[BengalTiger]

The old "we are doomed" brigade out in force as usual, no one seems to allow that we had a team who have not played together for weeks, some players who have not had any rugby at all for weeks ( Youngs, Stewart, Wiese) a late change at 10 and internationals who must be running on fumes (Cole, Refel and Chessum) so it is no surprise it was not a well oiled machine out there, Gloucester are coming good but have had minimal disruption and a nice practice match last week, get real doom mongers!

[sapajo]

The old "we are doomed" brigade out in force as usual, no one seems to allow that we had a team who have not played together for weeks, some players who have not had any rugby at all for weeks ( Youngs, Stewart, Wiese) a late change at 10 and internationals who must be running on fumes (Cole, Refel and Chessum) so it is no surprise it was not a well oiled machine out there, Gloucester are coming good but have had minimal disruption and a nice practice match last week, get real doom mongers!

So why save first choice No10 not being available for us, did Sarries perform in the way they did then? It also does not explain why was also so poor the week before???

[Tiglon]

The old "we are doomed" brigade out in force as usual, no one seems to allow that we had a team who have not played together for weeks, some players who have not had any rugby at all for weeks ( Youngs, Stewart, Wiese) a late change at 10 and internationals who must be running on fumes (Cole, Refel and Chessum) so it is no surprise it was not a well oiled machine out there, Gloucester are coming good but have had minimal disruption and a nice practice match last week, get real doom mongers!

So why save first choice No10 not being available for us, did Sarries perform in the way they did then? It also does not explain why was also so poor the week before???

Agreed. There's no correlation between results last weekend and internationals/rested/time together. That can't be an excuse.

Clearly different clubs have managed the break in different ways and, for whatever reason, ours really didn't work.

Gloucester did not play well on Friday, and Sarries would have put 40+ past us playing the way they did - they wouldn't have let us walk the rolling maul over the line either.

The rest of the season is about building for next year now, so let's hope we see a positive direction.

[RichardB]

We all want to see immediate results but I really do think the new coach cannot properly be judged until next season, when he has had time with his preferred, not inherited, team - on & off the pitch

[TigerFeetSteve]

https://twitter.com/wiffen_john/status/ ... oauTA&s=19

It's been confirmed that Kelly played with a bug last week and has been given the week off...

So that's two players officially confirmed as ill, so think we now can say that there was a bug in camp...

[westwinds31]

Not content with beating us twice, Shedweb seem more interested in Diamonds comments about our driving maul. Apparently 2 of our tries were illegal ! Comical ! It was fine when that’s all Gloucester had wasn’t it !?

[fortysix]

We need to win all our remaining League games.

With the players at our disposal, its down to the Coach ........

64000$ Question is-----------do the players rate him ??

[Tiglon]

We need to win all our remaining League games.

With the players at our disposal, its down to the Coach ........

64000$ Question is-----------do the players rate him ??

I would hope we have a group of players that will do their best regardless of whether they rate the coach. If not, the bigger problem lies with them not with him.

[TigerFeetSteve]

We need to win all our remaining League games.

With the players at our disposal, its down to the Coach ........

64000$ Question is-----------do the players rate him ??

I've pulled a spreadsheet together of each of the games and we'd *probably* get top 4 in most permutations of us winning 4 of the remaining 5, so long as we win the home ones as they are against more serious top 4 contenders with us (Saints likely already one of the 4 there, Sale more likely out of the running)

[Lutontiger]

Feel sorry for Shillcock - I seem to remember there was a game recently where his good kicking played a big part in us winning

[No6_Flanker]

Feel sorry for Shillcock - I seem to remember there was a game recently where his good kicking played a big part in us winning

Bath at the Rec, 40m penalty in driving rain.