By Jason Harris
April 18 2005

The came, they saw, they went home with a bloody nose. Table-topping Tigers returned to Welford Road clutching a just a losing bonus point after going down for the first time in 11 matches against Saracens 19-17, with Thomas Castaignède scoring all Sarries' points. Leicester left a packed Vicarage Road licking their wounds and worrying over potential suspensions for Martin Corry – sent of after 27 minutes for an elbow to Richard Hill’s face – and skipper Martin Johnson just a week before their Heineken Cup semi-final clash with Toulouse at the Walkers stadium.

This was a full-blooded encounter in which Leicester faced organised intimidation akin to what they have imposed upon nearly every team that has crossed their path since the advent of professionalism a decade ago. Pretty it most certainly was not and referee Chris White had his hands full for the entire 80 minutes as Sarries sought to get under the skin of Johnson and his team.

Sarries started brightly and with a surprise for the opposition. Not content to put just the wings in jerseys with the wrong numbers on the back – Vaikona wearing 11 but playing on the right, Johnston donning 14 on the left – Thomas Castaignède and Mark Bartholomeusz also swapped places.

The Frenchman in the 10 shirt moved to fullback while the Australian no.15 played his 62 minutes at outside half. The reason for this was not abundantly clear, but it worked as Bartholomeusz played sensibly at stand-off, often putting Sarries in good territorial position with some accurate kicking.

An early lead was taken by the Men in Black when Castaignède kicked the first of his four penalty goals on three minutes and the lead was stretched to 10-0 at the end of the first quarter as Castaignède rounded off a move that had two moments of brilliance in its build-up.

Tevita Vaikona showed awareness, strength and dexterity to offload the ball around the back of Tigers centre Matt Cornwell despite the attention of three defenders; Dan Harris then pulled off an instant take-and-give to the onrushing Castaignède who glided through the gap, stepped off his left foot to beat fullback Sam Vesty and touch down under the sticks, making the conversion of his own try a formality.

This score stirred Tigers and almost immediately after the re-start, a well-worked overlap saw hooker and former Saracen George Chuter in the outside centre channel. A dummy sent Vaikona the wrong way, a strong hand-off did for Bracken who will be disappointed that he went too high in the tackle and brute force ensured that last man Castaignède was not going to deny the Leicester front rower the five points as he crashed over in the left hand corner. Andy Goode, another formerly of this parish, narrowly missed the conversion from the touchline.

Then came the turning point for Tigers as Corry saw red. After landing a couple of blows upon opposite number Hugh Vyvyan, the England captain was hauled to the floor by Hill. Corry’s reaction was to throw out an elbow that connected with his England and Lion colleague’s cheek right in front of the touch judge who recommended to referee White that he be sent from the field.

In spite of this major setback and having to play the remaining 50 minutes with 14 men, the visitors headed in to the dressing room at the half ahead 14-10 after Goode had landed three penalties following further Saracens indiscipline.

The second period was a war of attrition as Sarries tried to out-muscle and out-bully their illustrious opponents. Goode and Castaignède exchanged penalties and the Tigers stand-off was denied a drop-goal after White went to the Television Match Official who ruled that the ball had not bisected the uprights.

A tense and fractious final quarter ensued with Tigers starting to show the strain of being a man down for such a long time. Castaignède reduced the arrears to a single point with a quarter of an hour to play before Johnson and Sarries flanker Ben Russell were sent to the sin-bin for an off-the-ball set-to.

The Men in Black, whose rolling maul was causing the visitors no end of bother, were rumbling towards the try line for what surely would have been the score to kill off the game, but Russell dragged the former England captain to the ground and so the fists flew. White stopped the maul in its tracks, dispatched the pugilistic pair to the stands and awarded Saracens a penalty for the original offence at the maul.

Up stepped Castaignède to put his side into a lead they were never to relinquish, though he could have put the game beyond doubt in injury time with a straightforward goal attempt that sailed wide.

The last few minutes of injury time were frantic with the game - as it had done all afternoon - going from end to end. First Sarries would pressure Tigers, then the other way around and Leicester could smell an upset when Goode put in a monstrous clearance kick from his own five metre line which carried a full 90 metres, putting immense pressure on Sarries replacement hooker Matt Cairns from the resulting lineout.

It was all hands to the pump for the Men in Black, but they valiantly kept the ball away from the opposition for long enough to run down the clock and record their first victory against Leicester in over four and a half years. The season-record crowd of 16,812 saluted a gutsy, in-your-face performance from the home side which showed that Sarries were no longer the soft touch the rest of the league perceived them to be.


SCORERS: Saracens: Try: Castaignède (22min). Conversion: Castaignède. Penalty goals: Castaignède 4 (9,46, 65, 70)). Leicester: Try: Chuter (25). Penalty goals: Goode 4 (31, 40, 40+5, 64).

SARACENS: M Bartholomeusz (rep: N Little, 62); B Johnston, K Sorrell, D Harris, T Vaikona; T Castaignède, K Bracken (rep: M Rauluni 57); K Yates (rep: N Lloyd, HT), R Ibañez (rep: M Cairns 57), B Broster, K Chesney, S Raiwalui (rep: I Fullarton 74), R Hill (rep: B Russell, 28-35), D Seymour (rep: B Russell 46), H Vyvyan (cap)


LEICESTER: S Vesty; G Murphy, M Cornwell, D Gibson, A Tuilagi (rep: T Vandell, 72); A Goode, H Ellis (rep: S Bemand, 71); G Rowntree, G Chuter (rep: J Buckland, 75), J White, M Johnson, cap. (sin-bin, 69-79), L Deacon (rep: L Moody, 11), W Johnson, N Back (rep: H Tuilagi, 79), M Corry (sent off, 28).