By Denise
November 8 2002

This week the news has been dominated by tomorrow's England versus New Zealand international at Twickenham. On Monday Clive announced his team with the major surprise being Neil Back's omission from the starting line-up with Moody promoted to the blindside whilst Hill takes up #7. The only other Tiger to feature in first XV is captain Martin Johnson, although it appears Woody has told Johnno that the captaincy is only for this game...make of that what you will. Unfortunately only Dorian West and Wiggy (although injured) have been returned to us with Austin, Stimmo, Backy and Whopper on the bench. Much has been made of Josh Kronfeld's comments about England being arrogant and talking themselves up too much, with many other Kiwis quick to say the same.

Anyway back to Tigers. Last weeks game against Wasps was for dull for some with Mr Cheeky Monkey highly unimpressed with the "the constant errors & the lack of interesting attack", but others enjoyed the game that was a "hard fought nip and tuck battle between two equally matched opponents". Whatever opinion you have it was a win that was crucial and took us up to 3rd place in the league behind Leeds and Gloucester.

On the messageboard at least the general consensus of opinion was that Josh Kronfeld was the star of the show - "he was everywhere today and made huge advances with the ball" (Brodie); "the only choice. He did a lot of dirty work and turned over a lot of ball." (Razcal); "He does well at blindside considering his career has been at the other side of the scrum and these positions offer a different type of responsibility." (Billy55). Deano however thought otherwise and his MOTM was Neil Back.

Premier Rugby made a statement along the lines that club supporters love the club games occurring during internationals beause the attendances actually go up, this caused a stir on the board. "We season ticket holders will go whatever but it doesn't mean we agree with it." (The Great Valerio); "Whose idea was it to devalue some of the potentially best matches of the season by doing this? These guys are so far up themselves they even believe their own hype" (Vicky_C). Not everyone was as against the idea: "I think we have to live with it and as the article says, young players have a chance to come through. We've seen this at Leicester where our young players have performed exceptionally during international periods and perhaps have been the reason for the team being so successfull over the full season." (JJ). tjs10 offered his solution to the fixture congestion problem - "If they scrapped the playoff, there are another 2 weekends instantly freed up! The season would not need to be extended as the Championship goes on that long anyway."

The excitement ahead of the Black Pigs versus the Pooh Corner Posse clash has been mounting, many BPs must be looking forward to another loss just to see Mark_H in that turquoise tutu, hopefully the boys will deliver. Some good news is that Geordan Murphy will be available for selection after Denis Hickie was pronounced fit for Ireland's game against Australia. There are still injury doubts over a couple of Tigers players, Freddie and Raynor look to be out with Tierney, Hazza and Ollie possibly making their returns. Graham Rowntree is injured which means Perry will continue to hold on to his #1 shirt, which is nice to see. The Saints are without about the same nnumber of internationals as Tigers so it really will be a test to see which squad has the most depth (or more likely the best kicker available).

As for the tutu wearing/Ajack prize giving the finalised arrangements are: Final whistle= straight into the Tetleys Bar. There, either Zara D takes her tigers shirt off and puts a Saints shirt on or
Mark H somehow manages to wear Razcals daughter's tutu. If it is a draw Mark H wears the Tutu.
Then anyone else who wants to mosies along to the Thomas A Becket public house to watch ajack get his prizes.

Razcal has a banner prepared in honour of this momentous day, so he should be easy to spot. Come on Tigers, give it tutu them!