By Chris Chaplin
September 26 2002

This week sees my return from the previewers bench to consider whether Tigers can get their away form back together following their stunning win over Falcons last weekend and as usual it all depends. For me the main "it all depends" centres around the fitness of Daryl Gibson, Brizzle's new antipodean signing who made his debut at Kingsholm. While he was on the field he was a class apart with superlative defence, telling breaks and that ability that some players have to grow their compatriots' confidence.

In the first period when Gibson was playing it was hard to see from the way Brizzle performed, against the rightly much vaunted Glaws side, how they were so far adrift in the table. Then Gibson went off and it all became painfully clear!

Their defence was then truly terrible at times, missed tackles, backing off Garvey to give him space, turning over ball, it was bad.

There were some good things though, the front five battled away and looked pretty classy in the first half but looked to lose heart when the hard won possession was frittered away. Archer and Brown are good players and will surely be the locks on Sunday. I very much liked the look of Lipman, his work on the floor in particular was excellent given the circumstance that Paramour and Boer especially had superlative games for Glaws.

The quality of the Glaws backrow certainly gave the second best half back pairing in the league a torrid time and Pichot and Contemponi really showed only the briefest flashes of their dangerous capabilities.

After the departure of Gibson and the arrival of Shaw you could have been excused for thinking the M5 ran through the centre of the Brizzle defence. Rees looks an unhappy bunny in the centre and Christophers was well below his best, these two seem to be having a crisis of confidence at present.

Brendan Daniel was his customary strong self making up for what he loses in pace by his tenacity and strength in the tackle. The full back, while producing some good kicks out of hand, looked fragile in defence and with little support he had a fair bit to do and it was plain to see why Brizzle have one of the worst defensive records in the premiership.

So to the beloved Tigers after their humiliation of Falcons. Well!!

I certainly think that Rowntree/West/Tournaire will more than capable of holding the Brizzle front row and although the Brizzle faithful highly rate their locks (and they are useful) I think that in Johnno and Kay they’ll meet their match and then some.

The key will be the backrows. The Brizzle backrow are no mugs but they couldn’t subdue Paramour/Boer/Forrester and I think that they will be similarly troubled by Back/Corry/Moody. If this is the case then Pichot will be similarly inconvenienced when trying to work his magic with and without the aiding and abetting of Contemponi. If the two Argentinians do get decent ball then Tierney and Vesty will have to be on their mettle and it could be a stern test for the young #10.

We then come back to it all depends, but assuming Gibson doesn’t play Kafer/Smith should be more than a match for the Brizzle Centres, particularly if Rees and Shaw are still there and then Daniel and Christophers won’t get the ball, if they do then both are capable of scoring, assuming of course that they can get past Stimmo which as Taione discovered last week is no easy task. If Gibson does play then it could be rather more challenging in that area.

So there we are then. Brizzle a bit of a bogey team of late. But lacking in confidence and fragile in defence. Tigers strong at home but lacking the old special something away.

The key for me is the return of Kafer. I believe his strength of both mind and body is the stuff that knits the backs and half-backs together. So if Tigers carefully watch the Glaws game, do the same things that they did (but better), keep it tight, build some points and then go for the soft underbelly of the central Brizzle defence it should be a good win and then and only then can we say we’re back on track. Finally I hope that nobody let’s Archer or Pichot provoke them into indiscipline - our pal Contemponi will be waiting!

Oh a score prediction? 29 -15 to Tigers.