By Tigerchick
February 18 2007

In his post-match interview, Leicester Tigers head coach Pat Howard excused their display today by suggesting that this was a direct result of the two-week gap in games... ...and that the team hadn’t really trained or played together since before the historic victory over Munster at Thomond Park in January. To be fair, Pat hit the nail on the head. Tigers were disjointed and disorganised and at times the handling errors were painful to watch. This team were not a patch on that which we would expect to see wearing a Tigers jersey.

Having said all of that, Tigers were very lucky that until 10 minutes from the end of the game, the Warriors didn’t really put up much of a struggle. The usually plucky West-Midlanders were a poor incarnation of themselves. Not having won a home Guinness Premiership clash all season and today was not going to be their day.

Tigers rested many of their International players, with the exception of Julian White, who had played barely ten minutes in the Six Nations clashes against Scotland and Italy.

It was a very scrappy opening, with both sides losing the ball at virtually every opportunity. Tigers continually pushing Worcester deep into their own territory and finally being rewarded with the games one try. A beautiful pass from Ian Humphreys put the superb Seru Rabeni over the line, right under the posts. The referee managing to miss what looked like a forward pass (or did Tuilagi simply fail to retreat behind the back foot?) Rose certainly didn’t have his best game, missing all sorts of infringements on both sides! Well, at least he was consistently dreadful.

Tigers kept up the pressure and had a try attempt held-up in the 22nd minute. It may well have been a try but the replays showed bodies in the way and the TMO simply could not see the ball going over the line.

The only excitement for the remainder of the half was the rather mysterious sin-binnings of both scrum halves. Powell stamped on Murphy’s foot, Murphy kicks back in retaliation, Powell then deliberately tries to disrupt the scrum and both get ten minutes in the cooler. They were joined three minutes later by Brett Deacon, who had been binned for a professional foul in defence of the earlier spat in the scrum.

Both team without scrum halves left some very interesting choices, with Ollie Smith coming into the scrum at flanker and Alex Tuilagi at scrum half. Entertaining at the very least!

Worcester failed to punish the diminished visitors, now down to 13 men. Only coming away from it with a penalty, kicked by Shane Drahm.

Worcester’s only opportunity to score of the half came to nothing when Marcel Garvey tripped and threw the ball over the line, with no tacklers in sight, this would definitely have been a try and Tigers were very lucky at Garvey’s misfortune.

Humphreys and Drahm traded penalties at the close of the half, leaving the visitors 10 to 6 up at the break.

The second half was pretty uninspiring, with Humphreys missing two out of three penalty attempts and leaving the home side with a much needed bonus point. At the close of the half, it looked like Worcester might finally cross the line but Leicester’s well-organised defence prevented even that.

So, what can we take from the game. Worcester lacked direction and defence apart, this was not a classic Tigers effort.

Sky’s man of the match was Tom Croft and for once I have to agree with them. He certainly rose to the occasion and proved worthy of his place, standing out head and shoulders above the rest.


Worcester: Drahm; Havili, Rasmussen, Trueman (Feau'nati 52), Garvey; Brown (Delport 56), R Powell (Runciman 67); Morris (Taumoepeau 75), C Fortey, Taumoepeau (Horsman 46), Gillies, Collier (Blaze 60), Hickey, Sanderson (capt), Horstmann (Harding ht)
Pens: Drahm 2
Sin-bin: Powell (26)
Leicester Vesty; A Tuilagi, Smith (Gibson 60), Hipkiss, Rabeni; Humphreys, F Murphy (Ellis 70); Ayerza (Moreno 53), Buckland (Hickie 60), White, Cullen (capt), Kay, Croft (Crane 67), Jennings, B Deacon
Try: Rabeni Con Humphreys Pens Humphreys 2
Sin-bin: F Murphy (26), B Deacon (29)


Referee: David Rose