By Barney Gumble
March 1 2009
This was a game between two of the top teams in the GP, with a huge amount at stake in terms of making the playoffs that lived up to all expectations. With LI being deprived of both their towering lineout operators Nick Kennedy and Bob Casey as well as the silky running lines of Delon Armitage, and Tigers losing 6 Internationals as well as many more injuries to both squads,
you could have been forgiven for thinking that this game would just be a placeholder in the Calendar. But boy, would you have been wrong!
London Irish kicked off, and almost immediately were awarded an early penalty for Louis Deacon not rolling away. Shane Geraghty stepped up and coolly pushed this through the centre of the posts to put Irish into a 3-0 lead after only 1 minute on the clock. Dan Cole was then replaced by Santiago Bonorino due to a fairly painful looking, bright red, knee, and Tigers fans could already see the faint light at the end of the away tunnel being snuffed out.
An ill advised shoulder charge into the side of a ruck from our old friend Cabbage, provided Dupuy with a penalty on the 22 which he converted to level the scores after 5 minutes.
At this point, Tigers started to switch on, and upped their game fantastically. From a stolen LI lineout, Scott Hamilton made a great break, and perhaps should have passed to Johne on his outside, rather than hanging on and eventually conceding the penalty. Another bought of unforced errors from both sides lead to a Tigers penalty in a similar place to the first, and Dupuy again slotted the kick. It turned out that the light at the end of the tunnel had only been dimmed, not turned off.
The game sparked into life after 22minutes, when Jordan Crane collected a long Geraghty punt downfield, and passed to Mauger. The Kiwi 12 made a shimmying break past 2 defenders and shipped the ball onto the rampaging Tuilagi running on the scissors, who then tried a chip forward. The ball rebounded off the shins of an Irish player, straight into the path of Mefin Davies, who in one movement went down on the ball and popped a pass into the supporting Ayerza. The Tigers loosehead ran in from 15 yards under the posts (And I’m sure that the Front Row Union will be having words about that), providing Julian with a simple conversion to give Tigers a 10 point advantage at 13-3.
A brutally powerful charge by Steffon Armitage straight over Scott Hamilton, clearly hurting at being dropped from the England team, brought the score back to 13-8 on the half hour mark, before another penalty from Dupuy for not rolling away extended Tigers’ lead back to 8 points at 16-8.
The next score also went the way of the revitalised Tigers: From a scrum in their own half, Vesty chipped the ball to the wing, where Scott Hamilton collected, and weaved inside and outside the defending winger to get within 7m of the line. The ball was again recycled to Matt Smith, and the outside centre found a gap to allow him to just squeeze over the tryline, thanks to a poor LI tackle. The decision was passed to the TMO and duly awarded. For topicality, I’m not convinced that TV would have scored that – good strength and a nice step from Smith there. With no further score before the halftime whistle, Tiges went into the changing rooms 21-8 to the better.
Half time brought Mike Catt on for Elvis with the Hair to add a tactical kicking game to the LI running game, and shortly into the half, Brett Deacon for the injured Jordan Crane.
From the resulting scrum to Tigers, Tuilagi made a strong run, and Dupuy passed the ball on to Ben Kay, who, not for the first time in his career, knocked on with the try line beckoning. A few pressure relieving kicks form both sides later, and Shane Geraghty converted a penalty from nearly the halfway line to bring the score to 21-11.
Despite the Irish starting to look far more dangerous, they still had the propensity for long, aimless kicks down the centre of the park. Johne Murphy collected one of these, and the ball was quickly passed down the line via Hamilton and Mauger to Tuilagi. Alex broke the line, stepped inside, and looked for a pass inside, but instead rolled it around the back to Matt Smith who runs in his 2nd try on the left wing. Dupuy converted to make the score 28-11 after 53mins.
Who was saying that TV should be selected over Alex or Matt?
Irish made a raft of substitutions at this point and really crank up the pressure. Paul Hodgson runs a great arc off a ruck, the ball gets recycled well, and Sailosi T goes over in the corner, 5 minutes into his comeback game. Shane G misses the conversion.
The Exiles really started to play at this point, and ran the ball from any part of the pitch. A scrum to LI about 30 yards from the Tigers line allowed Geraghty to make a clever chip and gather, followed by another chip from Catt. Alex T covered across to claim the ball, but got carried over the line for a 5m scrum to Irish. Great LI pressure again, but Catty shovels it into touch. More pressure from LI, and it’s really starting to tell - Tackle stat is 66 to 17 in the 2nd half!
Santiago Bonorino comes off due to injury, and the spectre of uncontested scrums rears its ugly head again. Dupuy slots a penalty due to Irish offside, and at 31-16 to Tigers with only 6 minutes left, the away fans could finally feel comfortable that the win was in the bag.
Unfortunately, the Tigers players seemed equally as relaxed. Scotty dropped the kick off for his first mistake of the match, and from the lineout, Mapusua ran in easily under the posts. Geraghty wasn’t going to waste time and took a quick drop goal for the conversion. Back to 8 ahead now.
Hougaard on for Vesty and 4mins left for Tigers to just slow play down, keep it tight, and generally not panic. Instead, Ayerza knocks on, and Irish run the length of the pitch, finally putting in Steffon Armitage in at the corner for his second try. Geraghty missed the conversion which would have put LI only one point behind.
Tigers take the hint this time and keep play up the Irish end. That is, until LI are awarded a scrum for accidental offside, and set Adam Thomstone (Who has been terrorised by Alex all match) off on a great run down the wing. Scott Hamilton comes across (Again), forces the winger to knock on in the tackle, and referee Dave Pearson (Who had a really quite fair game) does Tigers a favour and calls time.
Following the tedium and negative play of Ireland and England yesterday (And Martin Johnson’s potty mouth), this was truly a breath of fresh air. Two teams intent on attacking rugby, using their kicking games intelligently, competing at the ruck well without giving away many penalties, and producing one of the games of the season. Well – certainly one of the games of Tigers’ season.
Since Cockers has taken over, there appears to have been a step change in the way we have been playing, not just the way in which the ball has been used, but in the way we are operating without the ball – Forwards are hitting rucks rather than leaning on them, the back row and inside backs are supporting the runners, providing options, and our back three (Whilst maybe not the paciest), are running some fantastic, incisive lines. Long may it continue!
MoM went to Aaron Mauger from S Barnes, and I can’t really disagree with him, but Scott Hamilton gets a good shout. However, what won us the match was our stunning defensive effort (Notwithstanding the careless 6 minutes at the end of the match).
But as we walk away from the match, you can’t help but feel that we gave Irish 2 points they shouldn’t have had...with the GP as competitive as it is, will this come back to haunt us? I sincerely hope not.
Leicester Tigers15 Scott Hamilton; 14 Johne Murphy; 13 Matt Smith; 12 Aaron Mauger (captain); 11 Alesana Tuilagi
10 Sam Vesty; 9 Julien Dupuy; 1 Marcos Ayerza; 2 Mefin Davies; 3 Dan Cole; 4 Louis Deacon; 5 Ben Kay; 6 Craig Newby; 7 Ben Woods; 8 Jordan Crane
Replacements
16 George Chuter; 17 Santiago Bonorino; 18 Marco Wentzel; 19 Brett Deacon; 20 Ben Youngs
21 Derick Hougaard; 22 Ayoola Erinle
15. Tom Homer; 14. Topsy Ojo*; 13. Seilala Mapusua*; 12. Elvis Seveali’i*; 11. Adam Thompstone; 10. Shane Geraghty*; 9. Paul Hodgson* 1. Clarke Dermody*; 2. James Buckland, 3. Tonga Lea’aetoa*; 4. James Hudson; 5. Gary Johnson 6. Richard Thorpe; 7. Steffon Armitage*; 8. Chris Hala’Ufia*.
Replacements:
16. Alex Corbisiero; 17. Danie Coetzee*; 18. ??; 19. Declan Danaher; 20.Sailosi Tagicakibau*; 21. Peter Richards*; 22. Mike Catt*.
Bookmark or share this story with:
Digg
Delicious
Facebook
Reddit
StumbleuponRelated Articles:
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.
I've just submitted ours... No Coulusion honestly but they look remarkably similar! Unusual two reports and no moaning at the ref, he must have hadd a good one.
One of your number on here even gets a couple of mentions in my report!
