By Lee Walker
October 15 2003

This weekend was a fantastic arm chair sports fans weekend. I had it all lined up; Friday night was Wigan vs Leeds, what a fantastic game of rugby league that was; Saturday afternoon was Glouscester vs Tigers.....
..... Saturday evening Turkey vs England, a 0-0 win if ever I saw one; out on the beers afterwards, a walk on Sunday morning to blow away the cob-webs; and then finally England vs Georgia, all on course there I thought.


I’m not a greedy lad, I didn’t expect everything to go the way I wanted it, the head said that the div-ball might go the way of Turkey, and I was dubious as to whether I’d be in a fit state to go on a 11 mile walk on Sunday morning. However, at no point did I expect the Tigers game to be the nadir of my weekend.


Don’t misunderstand me, I’d felt all week that it would take a great effort for Tigers to get a result at Kingsholm. Glaws are a fine outfit, even without their England props, with a good mix of experience and youth. However, as I sat down in front of the TV on Saturday afternoon I still thought we could make a fist of it and get some sort of result, even if it was just a bonus point. And so to the action:


How does the saying go? To loose one back is unlucky, but to loose two is careless… ..I’m not sure whether there was any lack of care but to loose three experienced backs just before a game has to be very unlucky indeed. I don’t think we should underestimate the impact this would have on the confidence and organisation of the rest of the team.


The early stages of the match demonstrated that there was a lack of confidence in the team, too often Tigers players panicked when in possession of the ball. Confidence wasn’t helped by a reoccurring Achilles’ heel in Tigers play this year, namely the line out. On our first line-out Alex Brown rose magnificently to steal the ball from a through to the middle of the line and set a pattern for the entire game in which Tigers rarely secured decent possession from this key area of the game.


Moments later there was evidence of the lack of organisation in our back line when the ball was chipped harmlessly to our right wing. However, confusion reigned between Stimpson and Myring neither sure who should have taken responsibility. You could almost here Stimo’s fullback instincts, yearning, saying “ I should be taking this ball”. Unfortunately Luke ended up with the ball, unsure whether to off-load to Tim or use the boot, and so he was caught in possession, giving away a penalty for holding on that was converted by Henry Paul.


All the momentum was with Glaws. I’m not going to pick through every passage of play, it would be too painful, but rather pick out the salient points. The comparison between Goodridge, Gloucester’s fullback, and our own Luke Myring was stark. Goodridge played with pace, precision, skill and confidence, this last being the key factor. Luke has shown enough promise in the U21s with plenty of skill and decisive play but Saturday just wasn’t his day. I just hope he draws a line under this performance and gets on and regains some confidence. One swallow does not make summer and like-wise one bad performance doesn’t make a career.


One area in which Tigers did seem to compete was the scrum but this was subject to some dubious officiating from Mr. Rowden , the old method of one for you one for them seemed to be in effect. However this seemed the extent of our forwards achievements.


Our side looked short of pace all afternoon compared to the lighting quick backs along with the 2nd and back row forwards of our counterparts. This lead to Gloucester’s first try which came from good work by Goodridge, Simpson-Daniel, and James Forrester who moved the ball one way then the other culminating in some dazzling feet by Garvey who finished magnificently. Paul missed the conversion.


Gloucester’s mobile forwards, including the superb Eustace and Brown, seemed to complement the pace that Glaws put on the game. They seemed to arrive at ruck and maul far quicker and with more effectiveness that Tigers. I think is the aspect that most annoyed Richards, a past master at such skills. However our defence held firm but in attack we were reduced to a long range drop goal attempt, often in my opinion the last resort in attack, by Stimpson.


When we did get possession it was squandered by handling errors, Henry Tuilagi being the prime culprit in this respect. The handling errors at the very least slowed possession for Tigers and one such passage of play resulted in another penalty for Glaws, converted by Paul. It’s a pity our place kicking wasn’t as assured, shortly before half time Myring missed a second attempt at goal both of which were well wide of the mark, almost as much as Beckham’s penalty miss later in the evening.


During half time I hoped Deano’s rallying cry could do its usual magic, but it was more in hope than expectation. However the second half performance was an improvement on the first. There were still problems with forwards slowing down backs moves and handling errors (by both backs and forwards) but we seemed to be up for the fight a bit more (sometimes a little too literally). Kronfeld was putting his body where it hurt to tidy up possession. This improvement led to a penalty, which Stimpson converted, but Glaws soon answered with a successful penalty of their own.


The introduction of Will Skinner seemed to have a beneficial effect. There seemed to be more running in the Tigers but unfortunately most of if was in our own 22. When we did get into the Cherries’ 22, including a fine break by Ellis followed by a rare pick and drive from Tigers, thei defence just wasn’t stretched enough. We were trying to force the pace to chase the game and this backfired in the 74th minute when Todd intercepted a Tigers pass and ran the ball under the post.


Glaws might have extended their lead and gained a try-bonus point were it not for an appalling lack of concentration from Simpson-Daniel when he failed to get downward pressure on the ball when placing it under the Tigers posts under no pressure what so ever, and a much more unlucky slip by Forrester when he was in sight of the line with Holtby to beat.


Thankfully the final whistle sounded with Gloucester winning 24-3, and worth every one of their points. I don’t think many teams will beat Gloucester this season and I’d hazard that none will do so at Kingsholm. They started poorly but have regained what the level of performance they showed for most of last season. Therefore, I don’t think this result is the disaster some have made out. However, I do hope that Tigers performance can improve else the league table may be a sad sight for Tigers fans. Above all I hope the fans can get behind the team at this difficult time.