By Tiger Bud
September 5 2006

When the fixture list for the new season was drawn the Premiership had yet been decided. The two best teams of the season, Sale and Leicester were not only destined to finish the last season going head to head, but to face each other again four months later the first match of the season. Unfortunately we all know what happened in May, which put added impetus on the opening fixture. Sale could feel aggrieved that they didn’t break the Tigers fortress of Welford Road last season, and had the chance to show that they weren’t being a one season wonders by being the first team to beat us on home turf for over two years. Tigers, of course, were still smarting over the thrashing at Twickenham. There were definite scores to be settled.

The individual battles were once again all over the field. Corry vs. Chabal, Hodgson vs. Goode, Lund vs. Jennings, Cueto vs. Varndell, but this wasn’t some bad Rocky remake, the side that won this fixture could lay a marker down for the rest of the season, and could show the other teams in the premiership that they meant business. Greeted by warm sunshine the Welford Road pitch looked magnificent and the pre-season excitement was obvious all round the ground. The most recent Tigers signing “Leicester Tiger” had replaced the ever comical (sometimes not for the right reasons) Welford and JT. No-more will the duo be the laughing stock when the Mascots play during half time at Twickenham at the GP final. Take that, Sarries Camp Camel.

The game started at a ferocious pace when Daryl Gibson split the Sale defence in only the 3rd minute. Finally we were seeing players looked sharp and turned on to what was happening around them. More hammering of the Sale line followed, which ended with them conceding a penalty within the new slim-line Goode’s territory. Unfortunately his miss kick sent the ball wide of the right hand post, which could have something (or nothing) to do with the beleaguered “Sale” shout just as he was about the strike the ball. Some people just don’t have any manners. It was Sale who took the lead though with a sweetly taken Charlie Hodgson penalty against the run of play but Tigers hit back quickly with an excellent inside step from Geordan Murphy standing in the fly half position to score under the posts. No mistake from Mr Slim for the converstion and Tigers took the lead they deserved. It wasn’t long till Leicester struck again, this time the forwards making excellent in-roads into the Sale half and the ball being shipped wide where “the least person you expected on the wing” Louis Deacon seemed to crumple down in the corner. He definitely needs work on his try scoring style, but training with Tom Varndell should help with time.

With Goode missing the converstion Tigers started reverting back to old patterns. The concentration seemed to wane and pointless penalties were starting to leak. All in the range of England’s incumbent fly half. Hodgson was also the Sale player to pick through the Leicester defence to score a brilliant single-handed try, which he converted. Hodgson was Sales main threat all through the game and proved what an asset he is to any team. He added another penalty ten minutes before half time to have Sale leading 12-16. Once again the Leicester pack hit back and forced Sale to some rush defending on the line, which resulted in a highly contested Geordan Murphy “try”. Except the video referee disagreed, and he took his sweet time about it too. After deciding not to kick for posts from a following penalty Tigers lost the scrum and the scores stayed the same for the new and improved 15minute half time break.

After the new Guinness Premiership competition farce at half time (how on earth can anyone within the terrace win?!) the teams returned to the pitch. Chabal didn’t rear his pony-tailed head from the dressing rooms as he had a ‘headache’. Probably from the big tackles he was receiving from any number of Leicester players. Meanwhile pre-season hero Tom Croft came on to replace the ill Jennings. Leicester once again came out swinging and a 25yard maul ended with man-of-the-match Martin Corry touching down. Even if the new match day announcer Martin Ballard wanted to award it to someone else. Corry was magnificent all game. Great supporting runs and brilliant work ethic should put him back in the frame as England captain, only for Robinson to suck out all that is good out of him. Sale were still by no means out of the race yet and a well-worked overlap saw Bruno evade James Hamilton to score in the left hand corner. Controversy occurred when the ball fell off the kicking tee as Hodgson went to take the conversion. Chuter rushed out to charge down the subsequent drop goal (go dust off your rule book) but Hodgson was allowed to re-take the kick, which he did with ease. Who said this man doesn’t work well in pressure?

With the scores at 19-23 the game was still wide open. Tigers were in the hunt for not only the win but also the bonus point to boot. This time it was Sale cracking under pressure of attacks and two penalties from Goode brought Tigers back into the lead. Panic struck on the Tigers bench when Tom Croft needed replacing. With no other back row options still on the bench on came James “Cabbage” Buckland, the former Northampton hooker, to fill in at open-side flanker. When people were thinking up all the individual battles for this game Buckland vs. Lund was certainly not one of them. There was no affect to the Tigers however, when Goode landed his third penalty of the game making it 28-23. More controversy followed when Chris Jones was adjudged to have taken Martin Corry out without the ball. Many felt Jones was lucky to still be on the pitch at all after a head butt and an elbow to Martin Corry’s face in the first half, so received a nice chorus of boos as he left the field.

After that Leicester turned the screws. With Jones off and Julian White packing down against (over-rated) Sheridan, Sale’s scrum was creaking. The decision from Corry to persist with scrums instead of going for points became fruitful when Sale constantly infringed resulting in a penalty try. Strange things, penalty tries, you always feel kind of unfulfilled when awarded but the end result was all that mattered. The forth try brought the bonus point and with some last gasp defending the death from Skinny Tigers walked away with maximum points, leaving the Sharks with nothing. Lets hope that’s the same story come May.