So what were the stories?

1. Tigers have a new stand
2. Tigers haven’t scored a try yet
3. Newcastle have a lot of new faces
4. Newcastle have had a slow start to the season
5. Tigers have had a slow start to the season
6. Hayman is special

Anything else?

A very wonderful lady walked from Launceston to Leicester to raise funds for Matt Hampson, not a mention on Sky 3, I may be doing them a disservice as it may well have been covered on the main coverage. In any case, well done Alix.

And so to the game.

We kick off to the right and Newcastle knock on, we didn’t have to wait long for the first scrum and although we won it, it certainly wasn’t convincing. We looked more composed than we were at Sale but still lacked any compelling argument as to what to do wit the ball.

Staunton kicked his penalties well, Allen looked sharp behind the gain line and showed, to me at least, that we have something to build on, but it appeared to take a week to get the ball to the wings.

From the first Newcastlle scrum, they were rock solid and scored from the resulting penalty.

I’m afraid the first half although marginally more entertaining than the 10 minutes of the Ospreys Leinster game last night that I was unfortunate enough to watch, it wasn’t much good.

We huffed, we puffed we nearly penetrated, we looked like we wanted to score a try for the crowd, we passed to the opposition. Newcastle had decided to kick any ball they got behind our defence and again they were no more successful with this plan than we were with ours.

Allen put in a great 1:1 tackle to halt a Newcastle attack but apart from that there were 2 opportunities when with the right pass we would have potentially scored, we failed to make that pass.

Then my hopes got up, scrum and we drive them off the ball, Charlton fumbles under pressure from Croft and a Newcastle player plays the ball in front of the offside line. Time is up, no time for a lineout, Staunton nails it 12 – 3. Unsurprising but also uninspiring.

The second half starts with better news, Hayman is off with what looked like a hamstring problem, as a result of that last scrum? I don’t know but if so, it just goes to show how potent the scrum can be.

Tigers were more dominant in the second half but also appeared too anxious to do something and we suffered turnover after turnover, were we missing a true 7?

Player of the 2nd Half must go to Adam Balding who seemed to be everywhere and involved in everything a bit reminiscent of Richards in his pomp a bloody nuisance to the opposition and gave a go forward impetus to everything the Newcastle team did.

Parling & Croft looked the most potent of our backs! To be fair Geordan was his usual self but we really have to get the new 9,10,12, 13 axis playing together soon as I am running out of time to say they are still new to each other.

A win!

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon

Related Articles:

• Harlequins 9 Tigers 15
• Harlequins v Tigers Gallery - GP02 - 2010 Season