By Lee Walker
November 21 2002

The match against Gloucester last Friday night will live long in the memory of many a Tigers fan I'm sure. But who were the fly in the scrumptious soup, who were the crème de la crème, what was the crowning glory? What a night last Friday was, full of passion, vigour and commitment and that was just the crowd!! The first half performance was some the best forwards play I've seen for a long time. For me the result was almost irrelevant compared to the desire shown by Tigers. But who and what stood out from the crowd?

Zeroes?

Hmm... this is a tricky one. No Tiger had a bad game, even that perennial villain of the piece, Leon Lloyd, had a good game. Leon looks much more comfortable on the wing, I just think its his natural position and in Ollie and Rod we have better options at centre. So no...Leon can't be my zero this week.

I'm going to name Junior Paramore as my zero of the match for constantly getting caught straying off-side. Not for the act itself, lets be honest, its what back row forwards are there for, but for not being subtle enough to escape getting caught and so allowing the ref to stop the game far too often.

Hero?

There were many good performances by Tigers last Friday.

The second row was a combination of emerging talent, in Louis Deacon, and the massive all round presence of Martin Corry. How that man is not being selected for England I don't know. I wonder if it's Clive having a strop on after Cozza left the England tour early to join the Lions?

Adam Balding impressed also. I'm sure I saw him take a few line-outs, this can't be true can it he's only a wee nipper, perhaps he's trying to emulate Cozza and become both a lock and a back row forward!!

Behind the pack the backs acquitted themselves competently if not in a particularly eye catching manner. Sam Vesty is developing into a fine fly half, he just has to watch those floated miss passes the opposition seem to be able to read them, particularly when he has Tug next to him to add his particular brand of midfield solidity!!

However, I think in my mind there can be only one standout hero namely our very own surf bum Joshie Baby. Until the last month and a half I've not been particularly impressed with Kronfeld. He has been solid enough, but not the All-Black legend that we knew he could be.

However since he has had a good run in the starting line up free from injury I think he started to get that magic ingredient... ...the ability to play to a consistently high enough standard to scare the opposition. Not just for his two tries but also for his all-round marshalling of the rucks and mauls. My hero last Friday was definitely Josh Kronfeld.

Magic Moments

A "magic" moment for myself was when I realised I'd almost lost my voice only 20 minutes into the match! I love those sorts of matches. However the moment that made me chuckle was after Kronfeld's second try, I think, resulting from a rolling maul and the announcer couldn't work out who had touched down. Over the the tanoy came the phrase "A try converted by Sam Vesty scored by...erm...erm...someone". Classic!!