It took until almost fifteen minutes in for the first points to be scored, a penalty from Tigers centre Tom Gregory after previous attempts at kicking to the corner and trying to muscle over the line failed, and the mentality of having to score tries was soon lost when Gregory kicked his second penalty for a 6-0 home lead.

A deliberate knock on led to Wandies’ first try of the evening, and although Tigers played on to cross the Saints line from their own half, the fact that the ball had been knocked forward, together with it having been knocked into a player’s hand in an offside position, meant a penalty to Wandies and the chance to go for the corner. From the lineout (where to be fair, both teams were dominant on their own ball all night), the ball was sent wide, Neil Starling found himself with some space, and broke a tackle to somersault over the line for the first try. Ben Patston missed the conversion, but all looked promising.

Patston then missed another penalty to try and get the lead, but it was not long before Wandies had doubled the try count. From a lineout, the rolling maul that was so effective last Monday against Sale worked again, and it was the hat-trick man of last week, Chris Budgen, who ended up touching down. 10-6, with the conversion missed, and the vociferous (more so than in Premiership games - how the young work themselves up) Tigers crowd were quiet.

It was left to a previous scourge of Wandies, Dan Hipkiss (so impressive in the last Boxing Day match at the Gardens) to create a hole for his centre partner Gregory to score in the corner. As with the nip and touch nature of the game, the conversion was again missed, but Tigers were back in front.

Up until this point, referee Shaun Davey had been having a fair evening. Events though either side of half time just seemed to tip the game over the edge and lead to thoughts of him losing control. First Patston kicked Wandies into the lead again with another penalty, this time in front of the posts, but as Davey played four minutes of time added on, Ed O’Donoghue was penalised for backing into Lewis Moody at a lineout. With the England man using every ounce of his experience, he managed to do enough to convince the referee that a card was worthy, and the Wandies lock walked with a ruffle of the hair from Moody. The half time whistle followed very shortly afterwards, as Tigers couldn’t benefit from the penalty and subsequent lineout.

The first ten minutes of the second half would be crucial for Wandies; could they hold on in the face of the expected onslaught. They did way more than that. Wandies attacked from the off, and from a ruck on the Crumblie side of the field, Ben Jones produced a box kick that only Neil Starling read, and he ran on unchallenged to score a quite beautiful try. If the first team had shown a microbe of that invention, then we’d have been a little less unhappy over the weekend. Patston kicked the points and it was 20-11.

Still Wandies went forward, and from a kick through by Robbie Morris (yes, you read that correctly), Tigers knocked on and the ball was recovered. As Wandies tried to go over in the corner, they were held up, and something kicked off which resulted in Lewis Moody and Johan Van Wyk swapping some quite serious punches which saw both men having to be restrained before going to the bin - but not before Van Wyk had left the field for stitches, to be replaced by Dan Richmond, and there were two or three minutes of confusion as referee Davey tried to work out what was going on. 14 versus 13, and Saints with a six man scrum against the Tigers seven. What followed will live in the memory for a long time. The six not only pushed the seven back, they destroyed them as Ben Jones got the ball on a plate.

It was time for change. Tigers player-coach Richard Cockerill came on for James Buckland, a sure sign that the temperature was going up. Tigers now pressed, from a variety of positions on the field, but the orange/peach shirted line (it certainly wasn’t gold) would not buckle, masterfully led by Rob Hunter in his last competitive game of rugby. Of particular note were the efforts of Wandies man of the match Paul Diggin, who took a one man mission on to stop the tempestuous Alex Tuilagi. Be it by conventional means, sliding tackles with disregard for his own well being to take his legs out and send the Samoan flying into the air, or even at one stage climbing on his back and being penalised for a high tackle, Digger was determined that this was going to be his night.

It would be fair to say that Tigers ran out of ideas at how to break the wall down. The battering ram approach of Cockerill failed; the moving of the ball back and forth along the line failed; the individual efforts of the ever impressive Hipkiss and Tuilagi failed; the kicks to the corner and drive from the lineout failed. Even when the ball was kicked though for Tigers to chase, the immaculate Patston produced a display of kicking out of hand that would make Nick Beal proud - this man would not look out of place in a full back’s shirt in the Premiership. As time ticked on to 37 minutes on the clock, my mate Rod said “the native are getting restless”.

“No Rod”, I said, “that’s them leaving”. They missed a storming finish.

Tigers passed up a number of chances of points, before on 85 minutes, taking a penalty to secure a bonus point and get another chance as Steve McGuinness became the third Wanderer in the bin for killing the ball in front of his own posts. Back to that man Diggin. He hit Tuilagi with a tackle of such ferocity that it left his opposite number in a heap, and won the penalty for the ball being held onto. A little ruffle of the hair showed the confidence (and cheek) in this Wandies side. With Patston unable to take the kick until Tuilagi was moved to pitch side, he tried to sneak a couple of yards forward before being called back by Davey. Cue Cockerill’s chance to come in and mouth off as cries of “cheat” rang around the terrace, but he got a mouthful back from Brett McNamee before Patston had the chance to make the game safe.

Unfortunately, he missed left. 89 minutes gone. And still Davey played on. Two more penalties, neither properly used by Tigers, and it was left to a knock on to bring the game to a close.

20-14 to Wandies, a famous victory for the second season in a row. The celebrations showed how much it meant to the team, and if the rest of the club can take the fillip of this result forwards, then perhaps things are looking up. The magnanimous Tigers supporters credited the defence for the success, and many commented that if the first XV had defended with that amount of pride then it would have been a closer match. It seemed fitting that Rob Hunter was the last to leave the pitch, a winner in his last match, and at Welford Road of all places.

Credit to Tigers as well, for showing how an A game can be organised. Let everyone in for free, as tonight. Have most of the bars open, as tonight. Have a variety of food counters, as tonight (even though £4.80 for a pork baguette was having a very big laugh). Encourage the young support, and teach them the traditions such as silence during kicks, as tonight. They’ve got it right off the field, and it’s for others to follow (even though we had the same couple of idiots in front of us that we had at last season’s Premiership game, who came out with the same old rubbish as last year. Boring then, boring now). They’ve shown how the A league can be a benefit for clubs. The challenge is set.

Big grins on the way home, but the last word to a Mr Diggin. “I’m knackered, but what a night”.