By RichW
April 24 2007

OK so I suppose I was a bit smug. Not much you understand, but just a little. But you can’t blame me. Despite having achieved the previously unthinkable and beaten Munster at Thomond Park in the group stages... ...then the strongest French side Stade Français in the quarter final and also one Welsh region the week before we still somehow went into Saturday’s clash with our old friends the Scarlets as the underdogs. Pundits from all parts wrote off our chances…and it hurt.

So, come no-side on Saturday I was just a tad chuffed!

And how did I come to be in that state?

Ah! Let me explain…

Bright sunshine shone down on us again as we filed to the dreaded Walkers Stadium, the graveyard of our ambitions in recent years. The sky was blue (and so were the seats) and the grass was green – as was the sea of green shirts in the ‘Tigers’ End’. Arrayed against us were the massed ranks of a singing Scarlet army.

The two sides took to the stage for an enthralling contest of contrasting styles to begin.

We were told to expect Scarlets to be quicker, more incisive that their fellow countrymen from Neath and Swansea had been six days earlier. We were told it would all be too much for us. The problem was that too many of those pundits forgot that without power, pace and flare invariably get you nothing.

The intensity and power of the Leicester effort simply overwhelmed the pretty lines, the poetry and the undoubted skill of the Llanelli team.

A couple of early, well struck penalties by Andy Goode settled Tigers nerves to give them a six point lead as they began to squeeze the men in red.

When the Scarlets got the ball they looked indisputably good but they had too little of it in the first quarter and only managed a single penalty in reply, with each kicker missing another before Goode made the score 9-3 despite the sin-binning of Geordan Murphy.

The game was close but the power (did I mention the power) began to take toll on the Welsh. They began to make errors in the contact as Martin Corry lead his forwards into what seemed to be countless shuddering challenges. With Ellis, Gibson and Hipkiss tackling like extra flankers the errors started to come from the Llanelli team. Their running became too lateral and the turn-overs and the handling errors began to mount up.

More pragmatic, Leicester kicked long and often (some might say surprisingly) to touch, turning their opponents and making them try to build again from deep set-piece line-outs. It reminded me of watching England lose to South Africa in the 1999 World Cup – going through dozens of phases to get nowhere, with the lack of a properly developed kicking game meaning that they had no territory from which to attack effectively. And when the inevitable turn-over came – around they turned and went back to start again from deep.

More unrelenting pressure began to turn into possession for the Tigers. They began to get ball in the Scarlets’ red zone (that’ll be a pun that!) and with the maul and pick and drive effective built several phases creating the weak spot in the Scarlets’ mid-field for Andy Goode to attack. Not perhaps the most graceful of players his side-step created a half gap and he drove into it, breaking the tackle but falling as he did. However he was only feet from glory and he hauled himself on hands and knees to the line to dot down to the left of the sticks. The ensuing conversion was simple and the score was Andy Goode 16, Scarlets 3.

As often happens Tigers were sloppy at the restart and the Welshmen found the go forward they’d been missing until then. Some neat movement and a sequence of direct phases took them close. Now it was the turn of their pick and drive to go to work. A sequence of short surges sucked defenders in to create the overlap and a long cut-out pass from Kiwi Regan King put Mark Jones outside Tom Varndell to score so that with a wide conversion attempt good from Jones the sides went in 16-10 at the break.

OK I thought to myself – I think we shaded that. And I wondered if the Llanelli players could keep up the pace.

As if in answer the second half started with no let up and with the spaces on the pitch that bit wider for the sin-binning of Alex Moreno and opposing Prop Deacon Manu for a flurry of punches the Scarlets’ team managed, for the first time, to play their wide game going forwards. Tigers tackled like demons but the pace of the Welsh attack stretched the green line until finally they found the week spot and Matthew Rees surged over the line. The TMO was called for with the suspicion in many minds that Andy Goode had managed to force a hand under the ball. But the Video Ref disagreed and the try stood. For the first time Scarlets were ahead; by 17 points to 16.

As if stung by the loss of their lead the Leicester team seemed to suddenly turn up the heat. Surging forwards, they flew into their tackles, hammered into the rucks. The maul began to earn huge yards only to be collapsed. With the subsequent penalties came territory and Tigers found themselves in the Scarlets’ half.

A clever chip of the outside of Goode’s boot and reminiscent of one last year against Stade Francais, found space behind the blitz defence and Shane Jennings darted through to collect, step the flailing full-back and dart for the sticks. With the conversion in front, seven points chalked off Rees’ earlier effort.

From their Leicester never looked back, more of the same power produced first a penalty that Goode missed from half-way and then as the game entered its final quarter an easier one to stretch the lead to two scores.

With time running out Scarlets began to chase the game. Their expansive game became frenetic and, constantly behind the gain line as a sea of tacklers swamped any momentum, the mistakes came. Ball was dropped and their pace at the ruck ebbed away to leave them mired in the swamp. Earlier profit to be had by running the excellent Alix Popham at Tom Varndell was nullified by the arrival of Seru Rabeni and the talismanic Number 8 was surprisingly replaced.

However the change made little difference to way the contest was headed. Scarlets’ defenders, drawn in numbers as they had been all day to the threat posed by Hipkiss and Tuilagi began to lose yards at the contact area. Churning yards of up-field progress turned into huge chunks of territory and Llanelli might have considered themselves lucky, considering Mr Roland’s earlier peremptory treatment of Geordan Murphy, that they remained at cadre for the remaining minutes.

However it mattered little and with their defence tiring the nine point margin looked enough.

More hard yard put Tigers in the Scarlets’ danger zone again. Shane Jennings, trying to emulate Goode in the build up to the flanker’s own try put in a deft grubber that any fly-half would have applauded, for replacement inside centre Sam Vesty. The Llanelli defence scrambled and under pressure recovered to be driven over their own line conceding the five metre scrum.

With the referee again falling for the Scarlets’ unique ‘fragmentation’ scrummaging technique Tigers turned scrum into ruck after churning ruck with replacement wing-cum-flanker Rabeni at the fore until, on the goal line the gap appear through the pile of bodies and Louis Deacon drove inches, no feet, no yards; thirty yards at least by the end of the night; over the line to score. With Goode’s conversion the scoreline was emphatic enough at 33-16 and too much for a Welsh comeback.

And that was almost it. There was time only for a few moments of the game in microcosm with the Scarlets playing ever more laterally behind the gain-line in the face of ferocious, unrelenting Tigers power and as time ran out it was symptomatic that the dying seconds should see the Llanelli wide game driven into touch to start the celebrations.

Two weeks out of two Leicester had taken on the best teams in Wales and sent them packing through an intensity and power that the Principality sides could not match. Oh they both played some pretty rugby but pretty rugby without the application of power rarely brings success at the higher levels. For the Magners league it might be fine. For a European Cup semi-final it isn’t.

The unwanted Walkers baggage was shed and with the Treble, the unlikeliest of Trebles, still on, the sun still shining and the pundits confounded the smugness settled and the pub was calling!