By Menace
January 25 2005

Tonight several questions were answered; can we get more than ten thousand at a development XV game? Can we win the Zurich A - Northern division league? Who is David Neilson? How is Luke Abraham doing in his conversion to a hooker?
And so it was on a cold Monday night, in conditions similar to Rovato only a week ago, but with better visibility, that over 12500 supporters turned out to watch The Tigers Development XV take on Sale Jets. Those supporters who turned up early were entertained by some exciting rugby from two local schools, who seemed to have brought an extremely vocal band of supporters, rumoured to outnumber the crowd at the Sale Jets against Tigers Development XV game played up the M6 at Sale. When the teams took to the field many of the players can have only ever dreamed of playing in front of a crowd over 12500.

It was action from the start and with only four minutes on the board both sides had already been awarded a penalty and profited from the kicks. 3-3 but how long could this continue? By half way through the first half Tigers had built up a handy lead through two tries. .Scott Bemand showing that Harry Ellis was not the only number nine at Tigers with the eye for a quick break that seems to be a characteristic of good scrum half play. 15-3 and we were beginning to think that the game was ours for the taking. Not so, by half time Tigers were 18-16 behind. The Tigers pack, which started in a dominant frame of mind started to be less of a problem allowing Sale to come back into the match.

The second half was progressing slowly, mauls trundled 20 metres one way the next 20 metres to other, neither team was gaining the upper hand. Then Tigers played their trump card, well cards. Prop Micheal Holford, scorer of one of the first half tries, was taking a short break for use of the boot when Dusty sent on the Tuilagi Twosome, Henry and Alex to join brother Andy already on the field. It was soon a case of One Tuilagi, two Tuilagi, three Tuilagi, score. The impact, please ignore the pun, was soon to be felt by Sale and was possibly the turning point of the match. Much of the rugby was now being played at the A & L stand end which Tigers were attacking.

With a full compliment restored to the pack and less than five minutes to play, came what must have been the moment of the match. Jim Hamilton collected the ball around the 10 metre line and lengthening his stride, as they say of the backs, he moved forward. Breaking through the Sale defence, he set off for the whitewash 40 metres away hotly pursued by Sale backs. Where was the support, because surely he would never outpace the winger at his shoulder? But he didn’t need it. Somehow and only Jim will know the answer, he managed to get to the try line and touch down. Exhausted he walked back to the other half of the field knowing that there were 38 minutes showing so only 3 or 4 more to play. The game ended with a well deserved 39-19 win for Tigers, 5 tries and therefore a bonus point leaving them on top of the table.

So who was David Neilson? A useful back row, reminded me of a Jack Russell terrier, always snappy around the heels of the opposition, becoming a real pest whenever they wanted to break free. Roger Warren acquitted himself well at number 10, kicking well form hand and from place kicks, some decisions suggested a lack of experience at the top level. As for Luke Abraham, he gave a worthy performance as hooker for the first 40 minutes, line out throwing was accurate, scrumaging satisfactory.

When he took off in the Lewis Moody mode at the start of the second half to meet the ball as it returned to earth you sensed that here was somebody who wanted to play for Tigers. He reverted to the back row for the rest of the second half allowing Cabbage to hook until he was replaced late in the game by Ephraim Taukafa.

A good team performance, a good crowd performance and Tigers stay top on the Zurich A league which is a step towards winning the league and the two legged final. The biggest puzzle of the evening must be where would the other 4000 people have gone in the stadium to watch the match? That is equivalent of having nobody on the terraces. There just didn’t seem to be that amount of space in the ground.