Shiny Happy People NOT!
By ChrisC
May 14 2010
The REM anthem is familiar to the denizens of Welford Road as over the years they saluted another victory by their team sadly on Saturday those people were neither shiny or happy as Tigers managed to shoot themselves firmly in the foot by producing an unintelligent and sloppy display losing their home record of success that stretched back over 31 matches, 20 of those in the premiership.
By ChrisC
May 14 2010
The REM anthem is familiar to the denizens of Welford Road as over the years they saluted another victory by their team sadly on Saturday those people were neither shiny or happy as Tigers managed to shoot themselves firmly in the foot by producing an unintelligent and sloppy display losing their home record of success that stretched back over 31 matches, 20 of those in the premiership.
In the end the match was decided by Andrew Small who I have had the unhappy of experience of watching several times this season and he is undoubtedly one of the most incompetent of officials.
Tigers’ supporters should not feel too slighted by Mr Small’s display as a number of teams have suffered a similar fate at his whistle. Earlier in the season I watched him endlessly warn one team over persistent infringement but Yellow Card was there none, while the other team, which was relatively blemish free in its conduct, transgressed and suffered immediate sanction by the diminutive colonial.
Otherwise Tigers’ were imprecise and distracted and one can only hope that with the match being meaningless for Tigers, their having already won the league, and the consequent resting of key players, that their concentration was on the forthcoming knock out competition that starts next weekend and when they certainly won’t be able to gift tries as did Youngs and Tuilagi on Saturday and which enabled Saracens to score when they otherwise looked unlikely to.
Sadly Dr Venter once again brought his employers, supporters and team into disrepute by his off field antics and I wonder if this time the RFU will have the guts to correct their error of merely using the powder puff and inconsistent sanction of a suspended sentence.
Personally I shall be rooting for Saints next Sunday as at least they are a British based team and have great ambassadors for the game in Jim Mallinder and Dorian West.
If shiny, happy, people were not in evidence at Welford Road then there were more than enough to go round down at the Recreation Ground. Bath have had a shiny 2010, have a shiny new multi millionaire owner, a shiny new training facility being prepared and a shiny new stadium on the horizon – it’s all terribly shiny and new down in the West Country.
Poor Leeds could hardly be more different, they have performed a major miracle in overcoming the intrinsic financial bias against promoted clubs which is a disgrace perpetrated by the mendacious and anti competitive PRL and whereas Bath were all shiny and happy with their Armani clad club I rather felt as if Leeds were clad in homespun ill fitting garments and had put their kit in some Lidl carrier bags before catching the night bus out of Leeds.
Leeds were denuded of key players and their truncated and poorly funded squad looked worn out.
In the early stages Bath skipped around like Spring lambs but, not for the first time, too early felt it necessary to add some epaulets and frilly shirts to their thoroughbred suitings and didn’t count on the obduracy of the rugby equivalent of the Jarrow marchers who enjoyed long periods of possession but once again lacked the penetration, pace and cutting edge to enable them to take advantage of their hard won territorial achievement.
Bath were assisted in no small part by an untypically poor performance from referee Martin Fox who penalised the Yorkshire based team at scrum time while standing no more than a few feet from David Flatman who repeatedly dropped his binding and on one occasion refused to offer a bind at all, preferring to hold his binding arm back on his hip seemingly performing an impression of Graham Norton and yet this all resulted in a penalty against the visitors which brought about the passage of play that led to the home side’s first try.
Wentzl was incredulous and Backy was incandescent, both with good reason.
Gomersall then tackled Claassens while offside and was immediately despatched to the Sin Bin by Fox who shortly after was replaced by David Rose when the officiating became more sensible. I wish Martin Fox a speedy recovery and hope he uses his time to bone up on equitable management and application of the scrum and advantage laws.
Now down to fourteen men and wearied by the efforts of the speedy Bath side and Mr Fox the visitors succumbed and thereafter it was something of an exhibition match with the toffs from Bath showing off their undoubted talent in wiping Leeds out 39-3. It didn’t tell me anything new about Bath as it essentially became a training run and ended with their coiffure in place and Armani barely wrinkled as the Leeds’ players fell off tackles and the defensive pattern that Neil Back put in place and which was the cornerstone of their survival plan collapsed as they just simply ran out of puff.
I have always been an admirer of David Flatman who’s playing career has been so badly affected by injury but against Leeds he got away with murder as he repeatedly caused the scrum to collapse and it is to be hoped that the match officials this week have a bit more gumption than did those on Saturday and penalise him without mercy if he tries the same tricks against the Tigers.
Mears went off with an injury to be replaced by the under rated South African Peter Dixon who has the same pugnacious and rampaging style in the loose as the erstwhile England hooker and whomsoever has the Bath #2 shirt at Welford Road the threat in the loose will be significant. David Wilson, who must surely become a fixture in the England set up, made one great run through the haphazard Leeds’ defence.
I expect Ayerza, Chuter and Castro to get the nod for Tigers, although if Dan Cole is preferred it will hardly weaken the trio and who I can’t really see being held by the Bath front row.
At lock the Bath lineout struggled at times against the Leeds organisation, personally I’d play ex Tiger Peter Short with Grewcock. Short is a good line out operator and Grewcock has the nous and experience as well as being a major force in loose play. Even so with the combination of Parling, Croft and Louis Deacon the Tigers’ lineout should generate solid ball on their own throw and I’d bet get some change out of the Bath lineout on theirs. I think it should be possible to get inside the heads of Dixon or Mears and make this an area of real advantage for the home team.
In the back row homeward bound Aussie Julian Salvi is an outstanding operator at the breakdown and seems to have stopped leaking penalties and I’d expect him to join with evergreen Andy Beattie and the South African Luke Watson with whom I was mightly impressed when Bath ended the knock out cup ambitions of Wasps at Twickenham. That day he played some great football showing the whole range of his skills, I thought him less impressive against Leeds when he showed some unwelcome petulance when the visitors got in his face but I expect to see him regain his composure at Welford Road and be a real thorn in the Tigers’ side.
Tigers will doubtless deploy the league’s top carrier who wears the #8 shirt; Jordan Crane. Crane will carry the ball into the heart of the Bath defence and establish redoubts as he usually does and in Moody and Croft Tigers’ have pace and great skill, although against the multi-national Bath back row the English trio will have to be at their very best and I hope against hope that the match official will use the same application of the laws at the breakdown for both sides.
In the set piece I think Tigers’ will have a distinct advantage but with the weather forecast for only a 20% chance of rain it is unlikely that this advantage will be enhanced by the weather. In the loose however it will be a close contest with both packs capable of good handling and running skills.
At half back Springbok Michael Claassens badly needs his pack to be going forward if he is to avoid being harassed to death by Ben Youngs – if it looks as if Claassens is doing a hunchback of Notre Dame impression that’ll be Youngs inside his shirt you can see!
If he does get go forward ball and can get a good service to Butch James then the World Cup winner can weave his spells and get the very impressive Olly Barkley into the right places. I doubt the ex Gloucester player will get such a free pass as he did against Leeds but he’ll take all the watching and need to be stopped in his tracks. James will not be phased by the attention he’ll get from Moody and Croft but I’m sure they’ll make their presence known to him anyway – rude not to really.
Youngs will try the unexpected and be undaunted by his aberration against Saracens, as he should be. The youngster has more pace than Claassens but not yet the experience but I guess that the Bath defence will be very cautious when dealing with the threat posed by the youngster.
I’m sure that given Toby Flood’s preference for operating on the gain line Watson and Salvi will fancy their chances against the England incumbent however Flood is used to operating in the most hostile of international environments and it will be intriguing to see how the two fly-halves manage their colleagues in spite of the close attention they are bound to get.
I have already mentioned the impressive Barkley who as well as his running skills provides something that Bath have been missing for a long time, a high percentage kicker, so in this area honours should be pretty even as well with Flood similarly reliable with the boot.
Where Bath do have a substantial advantage is the combination of James and Barkley in kicking from hand which due to the limited kicking game of Tony Allen is an area of concern for me although here’s another ex Gloucester player who has a fine running game.
If Bath persevere with Shontayne Hape then at least he’s predictable, of course knowing what he’s going to do and stopping him doing it are two very different things and if, as could be the case, Barkley gets the league convert in behind the Tigers’ defence there could be trouble – big trouble.
However the parsimonious defensive record of Tigers’ in the premiership where they have conceded less than 20 tries this term suggests that the highly rated Bath attack will have it all to do to get a return.
In Matt Smith Tigers have a staunch defender who with Allen presents a real challenge and Hape and Barkley may find the going tough when defending against the physical Tigers pairing.
Out wide the departing Joe Maddock must be one of the most lethal finishers in the premiership and will be sorely missed when he departs in a few weeks time and I would recommend that Tigers do not kick the ball to him as the Tigers back three will have one hell of a job stopping him once he gets going. On the other wing however Matt Banahan, he of the library of bodily decoration, looks less certain when he doesn’t have the ball in hand and was horribly exposed when Leeds slotted a grubber kick behind him on Saturday. I commend this tactic to Tigers as the 6’7” leviathan has a long way to bend to collect such a ball and furthermore cannot collect it at pace and run it back. Don’t kick it to him on the full though as he’ll come back like a centurion tank.
Alex Tuilagi managed to score a nice try on Saturday and then wrapped one up in lovely paper with a special bow on top for Chris Wyles to run in – why didn’t Geordan take the ball anyway? This is not usually a problem for any of the Tigers back three with Geordan Murphy being a master of this particular art and Hamilton is pretty bomb proof too.
Abendanon is a wonderfully mazy runner although he can get carried away with himself and go that yard too far and get isolated in proving what a star he thinks he is, his weakness is under the high ball and we all know his affection for Tuilagi and vice versa so I rather expect to see ball and Alex and Moody arriving with the blond haired wonder boy at the same time, which could be interesting.
At the other end there are few better under the high ball than Geordan Murphy so let’s hope the Bath back three decide to test him out and watch him glide back through their defence – how does he seem to move so slowly but get to where he’s going so fast?
Tigers will need to be very sensible in their use of the kick to the back three – just to remind them – Maddock = don’t go there. Banahan = on the floor and behind him. Abendanon = high kicks with plenty of chance for the chasers to get to get to him. OK?? Got it?? Well done.
The outcome? Well I think Tigers will gain sufficient advantage from the pack to deny Bath sufficient space and time to get their fabled off loading game going and if that’s the case then Tigers by ten points but if I’m wrong on that then I’m wrong on the result and it’ll be Bath by ten.
Tigers’ supporters should not feel too slighted by Mr Small’s display as a number of teams have suffered a similar fate at his whistle. Earlier in the season I watched him endlessly warn one team over persistent infringement but Yellow Card was there none, while the other team, which was relatively blemish free in its conduct, transgressed and suffered immediate sanction by the diminutive colonial.
Otherwise Tigers’ were imprecise and distracted and one can only hope that with the match being meaningless for Tigers, their having already won the league, and the consequent resting of key players, that their concentration was on the forthcoming knock out competition that starts next weekend and when they certainly won’t be able to gift tries as did Youngs and Tuilagi on Saturday and which enabled Saracens to score when they otherwise looked unlikely to.
Sadly Dr Venter once again brought his employers, supporters and team into disrepute by his off field antics and I wonder if this time the RFU will have the guts to correct their error of merely using the powder puff and inconsistent sanction of a suspended sentence.
Personally I shall be rooting for Saints next Sunday as at least they are a British based team and have great ambassadors for the game in Jim Mallinder and Dorian West.
If shiny, happy, people were not in evidence at Welford Road then there were more than enough to go round down at the Recreation Ground. Bath have had a shiny 2010, have a shiny new multi millionaire owner, a shiny new training facility being prepared and a shiny new stadium on the horizon – it’s all terribly shiny and new down in the West Country.
Poor Leeds could hardly be more different, they have performed a major miracle in overcoming the intrinsic financial bias against promoted clubs which is a disgrace perpetrated by the mendacious and anti competitive PRL and whereas Bath were all shiny and happy with their Armani clad club I rather felt as if Leeds were clad in homespun ill fitting garments and had put their kit in some Lidl carrier bags before catching the night bus out of Leeds.
Leeds were denuded of key players and their truncated and poorly funded squad looked worn out.
In the early stages Bath skipped around like Spring lambs but, not for the first time, too early felt it necessary to add some epaulets and frilly shirts to their thoroughbred suitings and didn’t count on the obduracy of the rugby equivalent of the Jarrow marchers who enjoyed long periods of possession but once again lacked the penetration, pace and cutting edge to enable them to take advantage of their hard won territorial achievement.
Bath were assisted in no small part by an untypically poor performance from referee Martin Fox who penalised the Yorkshire based team at scrum time while standing no more than a few feet from David Flatman who repeatedly dropped his binding and on one occasion refused to offer a bind at all, preferring to hold his binding arm back on his hip seemingly performing an impression of Graham Norton and yet this all resulted in a penalty against the visitors which brought about the passage of play that led to the home side’s first try.
Wentzl was incredulous and Backy was incandescent, both with good reason.
Gomersall then tackled Claassens while offside and was immediately despatched to the Sin Bin by Fox who shortly after was replaced by David Rose when the officiating became more sensible. I wish Martin Fox a speedy recovery and hope he uses his time to bone up on equitable management and application of the scrum and advantage laws.
Now down to fourteen men and wearied by the efforts of the speedy Bath side and Mr Fox the visitors succumbed and thereafter it was something of an exhibition match with the toffs from Bath showing off their undoubted talent in wiping Leeds out 39-3. It didn’t tell me anything new about Bath as it essentially became a training run and ended with their coiffure in place and Armani barely wrinkled as the Leeds’ players fell off tackles and the defensive pattern that Neil Back put in place and which was the cornerstone of their survival plan collapsed as they just simply ran out of puff.
I have always been an admirer of David Flatman who’s playing career has been so badly affected by injury but against Leeds he got away with murder as he repeatedly caused the scrum to collapse and it is to be hoped that the match officials this week have a bit more gumption than did those on Saturday and penalise him without mercy if he tries the same tricks against the Tigers.
Mears went off with an injury to be replaced by the under rated South African Peter Dixon who has the same pugnacious and rampaging style in the loose as the erstwhile England hooker and whomsoever has the Bath #2 shirt at Welford Road the threat in the loose will be significant. David Wilson, who must surely become a fixture in the England set up, made one great run through the haphazard Leeds’ defence.
I expect Ayerza, Chuter and Castro to get the nod for Tigers, although if Dan Cole is preferred it will hardly weaken the trio and who I can’t really see being held by the Bath front row.
At lock the Bath lineout struggled at times against the Leeds organisation, personally I’d play ex Tiger Peter Short with Grewcock. Short is a good line out operator and Grewcock has the nous and experience as well as being a major force in loose play. Even so with the combination of Parling, Croft and Louis Deacon the Tigers’ lineout should generate solid ball on their own throw and I’d bet get some change out of the Bath lineout on theirs. I think it should be possible to get inside the heads of Dixon or Mears and make this an area of real advantage for the home team.
In the back row homeward bound Aussie Julian Salvi is an outstanding operator at the breakdown and seems to have stopped leaking penalties and I’d expect him to join with evergreen Andy Beattie and the South African Luke Watson with whom I was mightly impressed when Bath ended the knock out cup ambitions of Wasps at Twickenham. That day he played some great football showing the whole range of his skills, I thought him less impressive against Leeds when he showed some unwelcome petulance when the visitors got in his face but I expect to see him regain his composure at Welford Road and be a real thorn in the Tigers’ side.
Tigers will doubtless deploy the league’s top carrier who wears the #8 shirt; Jordan Crane. Crane will carry the ball into the heart of the Bath defence and establish redoubts as he usually does and in Moody and Croft Tigers’ have pace and great skill, although against the multi-national Bath back row the English trio will have to be at their very best and I hope against hope that the match official will use the same application of the laws at the breakdown for both sides.
In the set piece I think Tigers’ will have a distinct advantage but with the weather forecast for only a 20% chance of rain it is unlikely that this advantage will be enhanced by the weather. In the loose however it will be a close contest with both packs capable of good handling and running skills.
At half back Springbok Michael Claassens badly needs his pack to be going forward if he is to avoid being harassed to death by Ben Youngs – if it looks as if Claassens is doing a hunchback of Notre Dame impression that’ll be Youngs inside his shirt you can see!
If he does get go forward ball and can get a good service to Butch James then the World Cup winner can weave his spells and get the very impressive Olly Barkley into the right places. I doubt the ex Gloucester player will get such a free pass as he did against Leeds but he’ll take all the watching and need to be stopped in his tracks. James will not be phased by the attention he’ll get from Moody and Croft but I’m sure they’ll make their presence known to him anyway – rude not to really.
Youngs will try the unexpected and be undaunted by his aberration against Saracens, as he should be. The youngster has more pace than Claassens but not yet the experience but I guess that the Bath defence will be very cautious when dealing with the threat posed by the youngster.
I’m sure that given Toby Flood’s preference for operating on the gain line Watson and Salvi will fancy their chances against the England incumbent however Flood is used to operating in the most hostile of international environments and it will be intriguing to see how the two fly-halves manage their colleagues in spite of the close attention they are bound to get.
I have already mentioned the impressive Barkley who as well as his running skills provides something that Bath have been missing for a long time, a high percentage kicker, so in this area honours should be pretty even as well with Flood similarly reliable with the boot.
Where Bath do have a substantial advantage is the combination of James and Barkley in kicking from hand which due to the limited kicking game of Tony Allen is an area of concern for me although here’s another ex Gloucester player who has a fine running game.
If Bath persevere with Shontayne Hape then at least he’s predictable, of course knowing what he’s going to do and stopping him doing it are two very different things and if, as could be the case, Barkley gets the league convert in behind the Tigers’ defence there could be trouble – big trouble.
However the parsimonious defensive record of Tigers’ in the premiership where they have conceded less than 20 tries this term suggests that the highly rated Bath attack will have it all to do to get a return.
In Matt Smith Tigers have a staunch defender who with Allen presents a real challenge and Hape and Barkley may find the going tough when defending against the physical Tigers pairing.
Out wide the departing Joe Maddock must be one of the most lethal finishers in the premiership and will be sorely missed when he departs in a few weeks time and I would recommend that Tigers do not kick the ball to him as the Tigers back three will have one hell of a job stopping him once he gets going. On the other wing however Matt Banahan, he of the library of bodily decoration, looks less certain when he doesn’t have the ball in hand and was horribly exposed when Leeds slotted a grubber kick behind him on Saturday. I commend this tactic to Tigers as the 6’7” leviathan has a long way to bend to collect such a ball and furthermore cannot collect it at pace and run it back. Don’t kick it to him on the full though as he’ll come back like a centurion tank.
Alex Tuilagi managed to score a nice try on Saturday and then wrapped one up in lovely paper with a special bow on top for Chris Wyles to run in – why didn’t Geordan take the ball anyway? This is not usually a problem for any of the Tigers back three with Geordan Murphy being a master of this particular art and Hamilton is pretty bomb proof too.
Abendanon is a wonderfully mazy runner although he can get carried away with himself and go that yard too far and get isolated in proving what a star he thinks he is, his weakness is under the high ball and we all know his affection for Tuilagi and vice versa so I rather expect to see ball and Alex and Moody arriving with the blond haired wonder boy at the same time, which could be interesting.
At the other end there are few better under the high ball than Geordan Murphy so let’s hope the Bath back three decide to test him out and watch him glide back through their defence – how does he seem to move so slowly but get to where he’s going so fast?
Tigers will need to be very sensible in their use of the kick to the back three – just to remind them – Maddock = don’t go there. Banahan = on the floor and behind him. Abendanon = high kicks with plenty of chance for the chasers to get to get to him. OK?? Got it?? Well done.
The outcome? Well I think Tigers will gain sufficient advantage from the pack to deny Bath sufficient space and time to get their fabled off loading game going and if that’s the case then Tigers by ten points but if I’m wrong on that then I’m wrong on the result and it’ll be Bath by ten.
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Shiny Happy People NOT!
Posted by: TheLeicesterTigers.co.uk (IP Logged)
Date: 14/05/2010 08:37
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Re: Shiny Happy People NOT!
Posted by: odd-shaped vagaries (IP Logged)
Date: 14/05/2010 11:08
Another excellent article, though I'm hoping our aberrations of last Saturday were part of a cunning plan and that we've enough wit guile in reserve to floor all
Wistfully, porcine aviation; positively Fourth Street.
Wistfully, porcine aviation; positively Fourth Street.
Re: Shiny Happy People NOT!
Posted by: Stopsy (IP Logged)
Date: 14/05/2010 21:08
Thanks again Chris
Re: Shiny Happy People NOT!
Posted by: Tigergeezer (IP Logged)
Date: 14/05/2010 21:11
Great article. I just hope you are right.
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