Saucy but good...

A mistake! Gary & Paul may have made some iffy calls in the past, but this IS a typo.

Into the stadium we slowly wander & here come the team announcements. The Worcester team was nothing like the one advertised – not even close but ours was as stated in the program. Hmmm!

A sombre minute of remembrance was held for the victims of the nearby rail crash & was well respected by all.

Anyway, off we go & it takes just over 1 minute for the Warriors to commit the 1st of many, many penalties. This one because the tackler failed to release. Though we had Catt @ 10, this time, we also had a kicker on the pitch. Tofty gets it over & it’s 3-0 already.

Less than 2 minutes later, Bish picks up the ball in the centre circle from broken play. A little jump to the right & a step to the left later sees him flying up the pitch. I could describe it as reminding me of the Bish of old, but it also reminded me that he’s certainly re-found his attacking prowess this season. After dodging a few Warriors, the last of the Mohicans finally managed to spear him 15m from the line. One of the retreating donkeys came in from the side & it was another penalty. The kick looked close, but close on the good side. 6-0 & just 4 mins on the clock.

The next 10 mins were dominated by the visitors, in possession if not territorially. WW could, & some may say should, have hit back harder. If it wasn’t for an excellent tap tackle from the paw of My Cat & a covering hit by Scotty in a slightly later incident, WW overlaps could have resulted in points. Between those acts of stubborn defence, Haynes missed a penalty when one of our defenders was too stubborn in releasing after a tackle.

It wasn’t long before Horak made the 1st of his trademark chip ‘n’ chases after collecting from deep. This time it was just a metre to deep & a Warrior managed to collect. The resulting tackle & quick support lead to us re-steel possession. The broken play saw Scotty & Delon in acres of space on the wing, something not missed by Catt who kicked ahead for the chase. Unfortunately, the ball bounced into touch, but we gained some good yardage (please excuse my mixing of metric & imperial).

Then came the 1st of many WW mauls where they committed fouls 1st but we get done. In this incidence, there was a clear case of truck & trailer (Where the ball carrier is behind & unbound to the driving herd). Anyway LI are penalised for bringing down the herd & it’s another WW penalty. Another miss by Haines & it’s still 6-0.

The 1st of a few nasty bangs to the head soon followed. Delport & Catt clash heads in a tackle by Catt. Delport has to go off for a blood injury to be seen to but they build them tough down South. Not only did Catt get up 1st, but he also forced Delport to knock on in the clash. The resulting scrum became a penalty as Sanderson was spotted interfering. A massive 45m kick by Tofty makes the score 9-0.

By this time, the Warriors had gotten into the fighting spirit. The game started getting niggly around the fringes. The clearing out by the yellow boots were getting closer to the edge of what should be allowed & Rob Hardwick & Van Niekerk had their 1st of many handbag displays.

Good running by Spud & Tofty got us deep into enemy territory before Tofty was finally bundled into touch. The resulting WW throw & play never saw them get the ball out of the 22. A rushed pass from a ruck saw Haines fumble. This was quickly pounced on by Tofty who’s toe poke ahead sent the ball into the in goal area. Scotty just managed to beat the chasing defenders to the ball & the try was awarded. A conversion by Tofty made it 16-0 with 26 mins on the clock.

Minutes passed with WW possession & more resolute defending till another bang on the head was heard. This time it was Gussie who was made a great covering tackle after a Warrior had broken past the gain line. Of course Gussie got straight to his feet, but immediately fell flat on arse again. Surprisingly enough, he was allowed to stay on & after a few minutes of looking a bit dazed, was back to his best.

WW pressure finally paid off when LI were caught offside & Haines eventually managed to pop the ball between the uprights.

The previous bangs on the noddle lead to 7 mins of extra time at the end of the 1st half. Haines obviously couldn’t handle the extra time as he tried repeatedly to get himself sent off. 1st of all he gave Horak a deliberate dropped shoulder after a Horak kick ahead, sending Michael sprawling & if that wasn’t enough, he then timed a chase to perfection to enable him to tackle Delon while he was 3 foot in the air. Thankfully for Delon, he managed to avoid landing on his head & was just a little bit winded. But despite the anger of the crowd (including some travelling Warriors), players, management, commentators, etc, Chris White was not going to give Haines the rest he so badly wanted & made him stay on the pitch. Haines must have been as surprised as the rest of us when the only people White spoke to were the clashing incensed forwards.

Half time came & went. It started with White & Haines being booed off the pitch & continued with discussion on THAT tackle.

The 2nd half started but the LI players obviously thought it hadn’t yet. A fumble shortly after the restart by a Warrior led to a scrum for LI. Good WW pressure on Dodge led to a bad pass to Catt who himself fumbled. Haines pounced & some good work by Daly & Sanderson lead to Sanderson putting the ball down in the corner. Haines missed the conversion & the score was 16-8.

More pressure on our line lead to a great clearing run from Scotty. After being forced to carry back into the goal area, he broke left & ran out to the 22 before being bundled into touch.

Soon it was our go at turning the screw & we soon had a penalty for offside which Tofty slotted over. 19-8.

Now might be a good time to mention Tofty’s work rate. Phenomenal would be the best description. Absolutely phenomenal! The early fears about his tackling ability were soon appeased as he was hitting anything that came near him with great force. His partnerships with both Catt on one side & Staniforth on the other worked well & his kicking was spot on.

Horak showed that it’s not only Scotty who can make great clearances with his back against the wall. A kick from the edge of his 22 went deep into Warrior territory. The resulting throw lead to another dodgy WW maul where we got penalised. This time the maul was static for about 10 seconds before being reset & dragged down by us. Is there a ref in the world who knows that a maul can only be static for 5 seconds?

As the 2nd half progressed, WW were getting better & better at turning us over in the ruck. The use of the Warrior boot was certainly a factor, as was other niggle, but we gave up possession far to easily at times. The Warrior donkeys were doing some great work in the loose. Luckily, ours were winning most of the tight stuff – till about the 70th minute when the scrums went uncontested due to enforced WW changes at the front.

Another Tofty penalty for holding in the 53rd minute made the score 22-8 & the game was now starting to look safe. The game went into a reasonably static period for the 20 minutes with just a loose claim for a try by Horak following a Tofty kick as anything worth mentioning.

The clock ticked over the 80 minute mark, but hey, it’s Chris White in the middle. We all know how much he likes adding time on at the end of our games. Usually enough to allow the opposition to score – remember the Bath home game a couple of years back. His clock just kept on kicking till Bath got a penalty & equalised. Well, why should this time be any different?

As in the 1st half extras, the niggle got worse & worse. Flailing arms became the norm. The TJ stepped in when Van Niekerk had another pop @ Hardwick & yet again White failed to act. Soon it was the turn of Ryan & Sanderson to miss each other. Again the ref said stuff & done nothing. However when Ryan interfered in the air during a line out, the ref saw yellow. Fair enough, it was a carding, but possibly the least so of 4+ cardable offences (the others by the Warriors I should add).

Repeated Warrior pressure & repeated infringements by LI finally tried White’s patience & he awarded a Penalty try to Worcester. If White had awarded it a minute before when he gave Wuss a penalty for offside (again), most of us would have accepted it. But he didn’t. Wuss finally realised that it was easier to secure ball through uncontested scrums than through lineouts which we often stole or spoiled. So they called a scrum, the ball came out & was dropped by an unknown Warrior. Penalty try to Worcester! Hey? Where did that come from? As far as I know, confusion still reigns when it comes to working out what offence, apart from a WW knock on, led to the Penalty that finally warranted the penalty try!

Yet again, Mr White left the field to the derision of the home support. Gary Gold, after his ticking off following his comments about previous ref’ing decided to be a bit more subtle this time & just told the press he was going to review the videos & make his comment through official channels – Fat lot of use that’ll do!

So to surmise. A very niggly game with far too much use of the Warrior boot being allowed by the officials. Some of it was beyond over zealous rucking. It was clear stamping. But then again, Whte seemed to let Wuss of the hook for every OTT offence. Our defence was outstanding again. We stuffed them in the line out, though did have a few dodgy ones of our own & were surprisingly good in the scrum (by recent standards). We did lose out more often then gain in the loose but that was sometimes caused by the backs being isolated. Apart from the odd isolation, our back line was all over them. If we’d have been quicker to the breakdown at times, we could have scored a hatful. And we must have nullified half a dozen or so overlaps by rush, bananaish type defending & some great covering tackles.

So what of the Warriors? As I’ve said, good in the loose & quick at the breakdown but some very bad decision making. They had 30 minutes where the scrums were uncontested & yet chose to go for the line where we were robbing them blind. They failed to make much penetration & weren’t quick enough in hand to use any space or overlaps. It’s not often you see a team that cheat as much as Leicester (see penalty count), have the ref on side & still can’t even register a losing bonus. Keast, the Worcester coach said it was their worst performance of the season. I hope for their sake it was! The travelling masses deserved better. And there were masses of them - good both in voice & temperament. Come back again – just don’t bring Haines!

It’s been said that a few of our games (including this) have been dull to watch. Maybe we should ask why. I think it’s because our defence this term has been very good (as a rule) at nullifying the opposition before things get to liven up. Some say that the other LDH game was far more exciting than ours. The only reason it was faster was because the defences were so awful. Personally I’d rather have a stubborn defence any time.

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