By ChrisC
September 9 2010

The opening weekend of the new Premiership season was one of distinctly mixed fortunes for this week’s protagonists. Down at Sandy Park Premiership newbies Exeter Chiefs pulled off a great opening match victory over Gloucester while up at Franklins Gardens Tigers produced a less than compelling display in losing to last season’s runners up, Northampton Saints. I watched London Irish overcome Sarries, and Wasps and Quins sharing a split decision, as all four teams engaged in the “Double Header” at Twickenham.  I also saw the Tigers match and highlights of the rest.

I have to confess that if the harem-scarem  rugby I saw is the brave new World of Rugby Leagunion then I remain to be convinced.

Sure there was lots of running around but the distinct lack of structure in the matches rather left me cold and wondering what I was watching.

I know that “purists” like me are not especially welcome in this Antipodean inspired bastardisation of our sport but after playing and watching Rugby Union for almost half a century I feel cheated and fearful of what the future holds for the Union code.

The reaction of the professional commentators brings back memories of the childrens’ tale of The Kings New Clothes.

Exeter Chiefs confounded the pundits and put away Gloucester, due in no small part to Nicky Robinson having an off day (which is an understatement) with his kicking, the Welsh #10 seeing thirteen points, that he would usually get, go wanting, which in the context of the match, decided by twelve points, was pretty significant. In the meantime the Chiefs’ fly half Gareth Steenson could do no wrong.  In fact Gloucester outscored Chiefs two tries to one, and had another by Narraway disallowed for a forward pass which must have been a close call as the officials didn’t seem in a position to judge, but their higher try tally could not compensate for the inaccurate display by Robinson.

The Chiefs’ resident Sitting Bull; Rob Baxter  is savvy and old school enough to know that Gloucester are notoriously poor when playing away from Kingsholm and laid out a very large tomahawk shaped banana skin for their illustrious visitors onto which they duly stepped and delighted the home crowd.

Notwithstanding this Exeter’s performance belied the fact that the visitors fielded a side sharing 158 international caps between them whereas the hosts side had – well – none! Furthermore in spite of Gloucester being in receipt of £2.8m from the PRL in recognition of their thirteen years in the senior league compared to Exeter’s relatively paltry £1.3m, they couldn’t muster the enthusiasm or wit to secure a victory.  I commend to Rob Baxter, Phil Collins’ rendition of Against All Odds as their theme tune for the season.

Tigers not so much hit their straps in the opening phases of their match at Northampton as staggered out of the traces against a very fired up Saints who clearly enjoyed Mr Pearson’s decision that it was perfectly permissible for the Saints’ prop, Soane Tonga'uiha, seeing no need to either offer or maintain a bind at any of the first half scrums, to his credit the prop provided a masterclass
in the art of tripod propping, originally perfected by Andrew Sheridan – but no matter, after all the more enlightened seem to have decided that scrums are – well – so last year!  As a consequence when a Tigers’ scrum was called it was so disrupted as to be meaningless as an attacking platform and in fact the only one in the first half that was remotely stable generated a try for Alex Tuilagi off first phase ball.

Similarly at the breakdown Mr Pearson’s random penalty generator meant that Tigers were prohibited from competing and so unsurprisingly Saints had so much possession and penalty opportunities it is extraordinary they were not 30 points ahead by half time.  Happily in the second half Mr Pearson decided to programme Saints into his random penalty generator, as well as Tigers, which was nice of him but did not compensate for an error strewn performance which matched perfectly the lackadaisical, frantic play from both sides.

Tigers’ line out was badly disadvantaged by the absence of Tom Croft as Skivington and Green did their best in what was entirely predictable calling and just to make the Tigers’ cup truly run over Flood disappeared with a knee injury before half time.

In spite of all this Tigers matched Saints in scoring three tries and it was just whether Myler/Gerahty or Flood/Staunton were the least accurate with their kicking boots – it was the Tigers’ duo and the match was lost.

Next Saturday is not only an absolutely must win game for Tigers but they must secure maximum points if their ambitions for the season are not to be called into serious doubt.

Chiefs will be making their first Premiership sortie away from Sandy Park and what a place for it – Welford Road.

This will be brand new experience for them facing over 20000 screaming Tigers’ supporters and their management will be doing their utmost to ensure that they are not overwhelmed by the atmosphere as have so many teams in the past. Although don’t for a moment believe the spin from Sandy Park that this a team with no Premiership experience, they have plenty, just not in Exeter shirts.

Of course the big advantage the visitors have is that there is no weight of expectation on their collective shoulders as so few teams come away from Leicester with match points let alone a victory.

On the other hand some of the more complacent Tigers’ supporters will feel that Tigers just have to turn up however neither the management, players or sensible supporters will harbour such a view as the Chiefs are a determined bunch buoyed by their win last weekend.

In the pack Chiefs’ ex Northampton Saint Ben Sturgess is likely to accompany Londoner Neil Clark, who also has Premiership experience from his time with Bristol back in 2005/6, when he made six appearances from the bench and collected a Yellow Card for his trouble. If Baxter keeps his winning team together these two should be joined by New Zealand born Hoani Tui in the front row to face the Tigers’ behemoths.  In the wings is the redoubtable Chris Budgen who will be very familiar to Tigers’ supporters who’ll recall his exploits at Saints and who has another ex Saint; Jon Vickers, to keep him company.

I half expect to see Dan Cole rotate with Castro in Tigers’ front row but otherwise I find it hard to believe that Tigers will do anything other than field their best combination and as a consequence I don’t see any real prospect of the Chiefs’ trio threatening to overcome them, unless of course the match officials become as bored in refereeing the scrum as did those at Franklins Gardens last Sunday and it turns into another farce.

At lock Irish born Tom Hayes and James Hanks gave a good account of themselves against the Gloucester pairing of the experienced Alex Brown and new England wunderkinde, Dave Attwood and it will be important that Skivington shows his much hyped class and Green his potential and that they similarly give a good account on Saturday.  I hope upon hope that Tom Croft is available to bring some variation to the Tigers’ set piece on their own ball and some tangible threat on that of the opposition as without him the line out looks ordinary.  

If Croft is again missing then I see the line out as being pretty even.

The Chiefs’ back row of Tom Johnson, another ex Bristolian James Phillips and the vastly experienced ex Bath back rower; James Scaysbrook, did well enough against the illustrious Gloucester trio but to be honest the Chiefs’ defensive set up looked suspect around the fringes and I anticipate that unless this is tidied up Tigers will find space here as did Gloucester.

Ben Woods looked classy against Saints while Craig Newby made a thorough nuisance of himself as usual and new boy Thomas Waldrom came into the game more and more as it wore on and I think he’ll become a valuable and well regarded member of the team. It will be important that they find out how Dean Richards is going to officiate early on and adapt accordingly.

Given that proviso I think that Tigers will prevail at the breakdown assuming that Dean Richards actually lets some kind of competition take place.

All in all I see the Tigers’ pack dominating proceedings and that the half backs will get good ball in good quantity while their opposite numbers become exposed at scrum time.

Behind the scrum ex Gloucester #9, Brummie Haydn Thomas, will have his hands very full with the Tigers’ back row and Ben Youngs and I suspect he could have a bit of a torrid time of it.

At Fly Half the kicking heroics of Dungannon born Gareth Steenson are well documented and while from what I saw he struggled at times to get the Chiefs’ backs away he’s certainly a good player of which we’re bound to hear more and I can’t imagine that he’ll give way to the new signing from Bath, Ryan Davis, who rarely impressed me when I saw him last year and his boot is nothing as reliable as that of Steenson.

Of course with Toby Flood now hors de combat Cockerill has to make the choice that he hoped he’d be able to defer until the Autumn Internationals – who plays instead of Flood?

Is it the youthful brio of either Twelvetrees or Ford or the steady as you go of Staunton.

I rather fear if Staunton starts and returns to his spot back in the pocket Steenson will get plenty of time and space with his back row and backs to get up onto the Tigers’ attackers.  But on balance I think that perhaps Staunton should start and bet on Tigers’ getting sufficient possession to create a cushioning score and then bring on one of the youngsters soon after half time.

South African Bryan Rennie and Welshman Phil Dollman gave the Chiefs an international feel in the centre last weekend but they got few decisive chances and the drift defence looked disjointed. So if they start again I see opportunities for the ever impressive Anthony Allen and Dan Hipkiss who should also contain them defensively.

In the back three for the Chiefs’ Mark Foster, ex of Gloucester, had the divine pleasure of scoring against his former employers who released him at the end of the 2008/9 season.  I always rather liked Foster when he was at Gloucester, he scored a good few tries for the Shedheads but fell out of favour when the management changed.  He was accompanied by Frenchman Nic Sestaret and at full back one of the Arscott boys from Bristol – Luke, who showed good form at Bristol and I recall him as being a tricky runner from deep.  Andrew Higgins, most lately of Bath, awaits his chance after a spell out of the sport and maybe they will call on his experience as he can be a real pest – assuming he manages to stay on the field of course!

It’s difficult to see why Tigers’ should change their back three for this must win match and so I hope to see Tuilagi A and Hamilton again join with Geordan Murphy in the opening exchanges at least, as from what I saw of the match last weekend the Chiefs’ defensive set up may struggle to fully contain them.

So I see a victory for Tigers and reckon that they’ll secure five points but if anybody sees a pile of Fyffes boxes outside the visitors’ changing room watch out!

Hail to The Chiefs

Discussion started by TheLeicesterTigers.co.uk , 09/09/2010 11:05

TheLeicesterTigers.co.uk
09/09/2010 11:05

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:09:09:11:07:07 by TigerChick.

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Rich W
09/09/2010 11:32

Good work - can't disagree at all. Thanks Chris!

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Johns
09/09/2010 11:49

Thanks Chris, another great review.

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Yorkie
09/09/2010 12:12

Thanks again Chris.

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Shouts loudly in rain
09/09/2010 13:04

Good review chris and looking forward to our trip up and bringing plenty of bananas with me.

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East Stand Chief
09/09/2010 15:18

Very good fair review and fair review there Chris.

What a place to go for our first away game

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Rich W
09/09/2010 15:34

We hope you enjoy it - though not too much!

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:09:09:20:44:13 by Rich W.

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SK 88
09/09/2010 16:43

Just one point to make, on the "like for like" scale last year we didn't get a bonus point from Worcester at home, so we are only defending the four points, if you like that kind of thing.

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Stopsy
09/09/2010 20:45

Thanks Chris a welcome introduction to Exeter's squad.

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