By razcal
October 25 2002

Here is The Second Weekly Synopsis. A brief summary of the main Tiger orientated rugby news of the week. If you want the standard of this column to rise then join the rota to write it and get razcal to move aside.

All the news this week has been tinged with great sadness as Hilary Johnson lost her fight with cancer of the pancreas on Sunday. Incredibly, Martin has declared himself available for Sunday's game at Saracens, probably in the belief that that is what his mother would have wanted. Hilary was not just the mother of two of the team but one of the most ardent of all die hard tiger supporters.

The week started with general pleasure at the manner in which the heavy (63-0) win over Calvisano had been achieved. Geordan Murphy's return was seen as significant but whether Tigers are really back on track has to wait until they are tested by stronger opposition.

Geordan Murphy was voted Man of the Match in a poll on this site with 58% of the votes

The Extras drew away 10-10 with Oxford University.

Tigers have a home cup draw on December 21st. It will probably be against Worcester but they have to survive 2 more rounds yet.

Stimmo has been ranked number 1 fullback in the World by International Rugby News. At least they call that news.

Further transfer talk links Tigers wih a Craig McMullen. He is a centre/flyhalf, from Australia and ex Brumbies. This hardly ranks as an earth shattering revelation as he has trained all season with theTigers and has played twice for the extras while on trial.

The Heroes and Zeros column returned with a bang being very well and extensively written.

The RFU published its detailed bid to be sole hosts of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Chris c wrote a summary of it. The general view is that the RFU are so disliked in the wider rugby world that any bid , however good, will receive less support than a bid from somewhere else, in this case from France. Chris was not wholly convinced that this was a good bid from the RFU.

The deadline for bids for the Grandby Hall site is approaching. This will affect plans to redevelop the ground.

The injury situation is clearing up. The major injuries now are down to Freddie and Ollie and Ollie is at least back in training.

Katherine 02 won the week's competition picking Geordan Murphy's nose.

Andy Goode, as razcal hoped he would, launched a war of words ahead of next Sunday's game at Saracens. He claimed in a BBC interview that Healey had often been unjustifiably picked ahead of him last season and thats why he had gone.Nothing to do with doubling his money then. And nothing like that to ensure Oz plays a blinder.In another interview with the Mercury he indicted he would consider a return to WR when his 2 year Saracens contract ends. I wonder what the diehard fezheads made of that.

Contact was finally made by a Béziers fan responding to a message left on his board www.asbh.net, by razcal. He seems a nice chap who would give any information required to anyone planning to make the trip to Béziers.

The Wasps game on December 27th will be televised. There is still no sign of the televised game with the Black Pigs on the 30th being moved from the 5.35 kick off even though there is no North v South clash to avoid.

The week will finish with a nice U21 game against Sarries tonight and TT and Tiger- ess are doing the match report and pictures.