Fortress Relieved
By Rex Thorpe
September 8 2002
The faithful gathered at Welford Road yesterday uncertain whether the Premiership home league record that causes certain journalists to liken the place to a fortress, would hold out in the face of a siege from the Harlequins.
By Rex Thorpe
September 8 2002
The faithful gathered at Welford Road yesterday uncertain whether the Premiership home league record that causes certain journalists to liken the place to a fortress, would hold out in the face of a siege from the Harlequins.
Tigers 30 - Quins 6
The anxious buzz round the Crumbie Terrace was based on the poor performance at Leeds and the loss to Bristol at Welford Road the end of last season. The doubts were fuelled by several high profile absences (Murphy, Kafer, Lloyd, Gelderbloom, Tierney) and the opinion of one Stuart Barnes (amongst others) to the effect that (1) a number of the Tigers’ great players were over the hill and (2) that Austin Healey is not a great fly half.
Also in mind was that Quins only narrowly lost at Welford Road last year and have made a habit of beating us in the cup. I was just hoping like mad that I wouldn’t have the task of writing the report of the fall of the Fortress. I was there when Newcastle last won at Welford Road in the league and remember how deflated I felt.
The good news before the game was the absence from the Quins team of Wood, Burke and Codling. In my mind this made Tigers odds on to win. The pitch looked great in the late summer sun with lush green grass underfoot. Matt Poole was his usual entertaining self and the rest of the pre-match ‘entertainment’ was as reassuringly inept. What other team I thought to myself, having won the Heineken Cup, would fail to parade it before the first home match of the following season?
However, just keep to me unsettled, the club revealed their new mascots. Lester Tiger is dead! I suspect it was murder and the prime suspect is the HSE. His head was too big and liable to bread his neck. In his place are two ‘kittens’. Perhaps mascots are not supposed to look fierce, but these two look cuddly. Would the Tigers be cuddly like they were at Leeds last week? The look in their eyes suggested not.
The team took to the field with 15,000 roaring their encouragement with the traditional chants. The early exchanges showed that the Quins could expect a rougher time than the Tykes with Quins players finding themselves knocked backwards in the tackle.
This in turn lead to the Tigers forwards winning more ball than against Leeds which is little more than I would expect from the defending English Premiers and European Champions. Quins to their credit stood up to the pressure well and the early scoring was limited to penalty goals.
Leicester pressed with their midfield looking better organised than last week. A penalty was awarded in the Quins half and Johnson chose to kick to the corner. Last week Leeds had defeated with ease the trade-mark Leicester catch and drive. The Quins could not repeat that feat and Neil Back rewarded his skippers gamble with a try.
That’s one thing the Tigers had sorted out on the training ground last week. The rest of the half was hard fought with the Tigers gaining a slight ascendancy. I could not see how Quins were going to score a try. Greenwood was getting nowhere and Gollings saw no ball on the wing. There were too many handling errors (but that was true of the Tigers at this time last year). The Crumbie Terrace seemed content with the team’s efforts as they streamed through the crowd to their half time oranges.
Much to my shock, Deano had made some half time substitutions. Jamie Hamilton was at scrum half. Why? Harry Ellis had been playing well. Then I noticed that Ollie Smith was missing and Freddie was in the centre. This made no tactical sense until the lady behind me spotted that Harry was now on the wing.
Either Ollie was injured and the rest was a rearrangement of resources or Deano had gone mad after all. Also George Chuter had replaced Dorian West. With these changes came back the doubts, which were amplified by the Quins having the better of the game for the next twenty minutes. The crowd went quiet which meant everyone else had sensed the change.
The tackling was still good and it needed to be. There were even more handling errors from the Tigers. It was woeful. Then the new formation gelled. The Tigers worked their way up the field. The Quins were stretched this way by a Healey break and that way by a Hamilton probe and were finally short of numbers on the right. Steve Booth did not drop the ball and scored in the corner. Stimpson, who had kicked well all match, converted from the touchline.
Once more the Tigers worked their way up field and gained a 5 metre scrum. A back row move led to another scrum. The crowd had seen that the Tiger scrum had been stronger than the Quins all game and shouted ‘heave’. Heave they did and the Quins pack, Jason Leonard and all, went back like a rabble over their own line and Jamie Hamilton did the rest. A PUSH OVER TRY.
Just savour that for a moment. It’s described in one newspaper as ‘straight out of the Welford Road book of prosaic scores’. Maybe so, but this one hasn’t been seen since the early days of the ABC club and, before that, the days of Robin Cowling and friends. Last year the Tigers had an Achiles heel, the scrum, with endless penalties conceded and scrum halves under pressure to get the ball away from a retreating pack. No more, the scrum is now a strength. Thank Franck, who for this alone is my Man of the Match. If the scrum remains this steady, Oz will be wanting to play scrum half again.
Time was now short but the Quins were tiring. The crowd called for one last effort to gain the bonus point for four tries. A penalty was conceded by the Quins on their 22. The clock showed 43 minutes. Johnson chose to kick to the corner. The lineout was won the forwards probed, the ball was spun wide and Stimpson scored in the corner. Stimpson and Austin Healey both looked shattered. Oz took his boots off. Stimmo muffed the kick and so stranded himself on 999 points. The ref blew for time and the Crumbie Terrace gave their heros a warm reception.
This was a workmanlike win against reasonable opposition. The improvement over the Leeds game was good. Nonetheless too much ball was being knocked on or lost in contact. It took 80 minutes of effort to win (unlike some home matches last year when the game was over by half time).
A full strength Quins side might have won. The influence of Woods over the pack and Burke from fly half would have posed harder questions. However, the return of Kafer and Murphy will make the Tigers much more clinical in attack. The true tests of the worth of the 2002-3 Tigers are yet to come from the likes of Northampton, Saracens, Wasps and above all Gloucester.
But who cares how we play in the first two matches? We only have to finish third and be playing well at the end of the season. Oh, right, I forgot, the Fortress stands defiant.
The anxious buzz round the Crumbie Terrace was based on the poor performance at Leeds and the loss to Bristol at Welford Road the end of last season. The doubts were fuelled by several high profile absences (Murphy, Kafer, Lloyd, Gelderbloom, Tierney) and the opinion of one Stuart Barnes (amongst others) to the effect that (1) a number of the Tigers’ great players were over the hill and (2) that Austin Healey is not a great fly half.
Also in mind was that Quins only narrowly lost at Welford Road last year and have made a habit of beating us in the cup. I was just hoping like mad that I wouldn’t have the task of writing the report of the fall of the Fortress. I was there when Newcastle last won at Welford Road in the league and remember how deflated I felt.
The good news before the game was the absence from the Quins team of Wood, Burke and Codling. In my mind this made Tigers odds on to win. The pitch looked great in the late summer sun with lush green grass underfoot. Matt Poole was his usual entertaining self and the rest of the pre-match ‘entertainment’ was as reassuringly inept. What other team I thought to myself, having won the Heineken Cup, would fail to parade it before the first home match of the following season?
However, just keep to me unsettled, the club revealed their new mascots. Lester Tiger is dead! I suspect it was murder and the prime suspect is the HSE. His head was too big and liable to bread his neck. In his place are two ‘kittens’. Perhaps mascots are not supposed to look fierce, but these two look cuddly. Would the Tigers be cuddly like they were at Leeds last week? The look in their eyes suggested not.
The team took to the field with 15,000 roaring their encouragement with the traditional chants. The early exchanges showed that the Quins could expect a rougher time than the Tykes with Quins players finding themselves knocked backwards in the tackle.
This in turn lead to the Tigers forwards winning more ball than against Leeds which is little more than I would expect from the defending English Premiers and European Champions. Quins to their credit stood up to the pressure well and the early scoring was limited to penalty goals.
Leicester pressed with their midfield looking better organised than last week. A penalty was awarded in the Quins half and Johnson chose to kick to the corner. Last week Leeds had defeated with ease the trade-mark Leicester catch and drive. The Quins could not repeat that feat and Neil Back rewarded his skippers gamble with a try.
That’s one thing the Tigers had sorted out on the training ground last week. The rest of the half was hard fought with the Tigers gaining a slight ascendancy. I could not see how Quins were going to score a try. Greenwood was getting nowhere and Gollings saw no ball on the wing. There were too many handling errors (but that was true of the Tigers at this time last year). The Crumbie Terrace seemed content with the team’s efforts as they streamed through the crowd to their half time oranges.
Much to my shock, Deano had made some half time substitutions. Jamie Hamilton was at scrum half. Why? Harry Ellis had been playing well. Then I noticed that Ollie Smith was missing and Freddie was in the centre. This made no tactical sense until the lady behind me spotted that Harry was now on the wing.
Either Ollie was injured and the rest was a rearrangement of resources or Deano had gone mad after all. Also George Chuter had replaced Dorian West. With these changes came back the doubts, which were amplified by the Quins having the better of the game for the next twenty minutes. The crowd went quiet which meant everyone else had sensed the change.
The tackling was still good and it needed to be. There were even more handling errors from the Tigers. It was woeful. Then the new formation gelled. The Tigers worked their way up the field. The Quins were stretched this way by a Healey break and that way by a Hamilton probe and were finally short of numbers on the right. Steve Booth did not drop the ball and scored in the corner. Stimpson, who had kicked well all match, converted from the touchline.
Once more the Tigers worked their way up field and gained a 5 metre scrum. A back row move led to another scrum. The crowd had seen that the Tiger scrum had been stronger than the Quins all game and shouted ‘heave’. Heave they did and the Quins pack, Jason Leonard and all, went back like a rabble over their own line and Jamie Hamilton did the rest. A PUSH OVER TRY.
Just savour that for a moment. It’s described in one newspaper as ‘straight out of the Welford Road book of prosaic scores’. Maybe so, but this one hasn’t been seen since the early days of the ABC club and, before that, the days of Robin Cowling and friends. Last year the Tigers had an Achiles heel, the scrum, with endless penalties conceded and scrum halves under pressure to get the ball away from a retreating pack. No more, the scrum is now a strength. Thank Franck, who for this alone is my Man of the Match. If the scrum remains this steady, Oz will be wanting to play scrum half again.
Time was now short but the Quins were tiring. The crowd called for one last effort to gain the bonus point for four tries. A penalty was conceded by the Quins on their 22. The clock showed 43 minutes. Johnson chose to kick to the corner. The lineout was won the forwards probed, the ball was spun wide and Stimpson scored in the corner. Stimpson and Austin Healey both looked shattered. Oz took his boots off. Stimmo muffed the kick and so stranded himself on 999 points. The ref blew for time and the Crumbie Terrace gave their heros a warm reception.
This was a workmanlike win against reasonable opposition. The improvement over the Leeds game was good. Nonetheless too much ball was being knocked on or lost in contact. It took 80 minutes of effort to win (unlike some home matches last year when the game was over by half time).
A full strength Quins side might have won. The influence of Woods over the pack and Burke from fly half would have posed harder questions. However, the return of Kafer and Murphy will make the Tigers much more clinical in attack. The true tests of the worth of the 2002-3 Tigers are yet to come from the likes of Northampton, Saracens, Wasps and above all Gloucester.
But who cares how we play in the first two matches? We only have to finish third and be playing well at the end of the season. Oh, right, I forgot, the Fortress stands defiant.
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