Leicester Tigers vs Racing 92

[twitchy]

Leicester: 15 Mathew Tait (c), 14 Telusa Veainu, 13 Peter Betham, 12 Manu Tuilagi, 11 Vereniki Goneva, 10 Freddie Burns, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Opeti Fonua, 7 Lachlan McCaffrey, 6 Mike Fitzgerald, 5 Graham Kitchener, 4 Dom Barrow, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Harry Thacker, 1 Marcos Ayerza
Replacements: 16 Greg Bateman, 17 Logovi’i Mulipola, 18 Fraser Balmain, 19 Ed Slater, 20 Tom Croft, 21 Sam Harrison, 22 Owen Williams, 23 Adam Thompstone

Racing: 15 Brice Dulin, 14 Joe Rokocoko, 13 Johan Goosen, 12 Alexandre Dumoulin, 11 Juan Imhoff, 10 Dan Carter, 9 Maxime Machenaud, 8 Chris Masoe, 7 Bernard Le Roux, 6 Wenceslas Lauret, 5 Francois van der Merwe, 4 Luke Charteris, 3 Ben Tameifuna, 2 Virgile Lacombe, 1 Eddy Ben Arous
Replacements: 16 Camille Chat, 17 Khatchik Vartanov, 18 Luc Ducalcon, 19 Manuel Carizza, 20 Antonie Claassen, 21 Mike Phillips, 22 Rémi Talès, 23 Louis Dupichot

[WaspInWales]

Looking forward to this. Just hope it lives up to expectation.

[Banquo]

bad defence from Tigers. Fair few missed tackles already.

[Banquo]

Not sure Fonua is up to this.

[Banquo]

Not sure Fonua is up to this.

lol, great hit tho.

[Mellsblue]

Finally a forward pass called. Machenaud has started brilliantly.

[Mellsblue]

Not sure Fonua is up to this.

lol, great hit tho.

He's having a nightmare.

[16th man]

Some interesting decisions from Nige already.

Leicester look poor, lots of errors, slow to match up in defence, very predictable attacking.

Got to imagine that Fonua is only on their t try to wear down Racing and he'll be off not too long into the second half.

[16th man]

Machenaud vs Youngs....

[Banquo]

Not sure Fonua is up to this.

lol, great hit tho.

He's having a nightmare.

Looks out of his depth, or rusty if being kind. Tigers off the pace and inaccurate.

Youngs isn't helping much either.

[Banquo]

Some interesting decisions from Nige already.

Leicester look poor, lots of errors, slow to match up in defence, very predictable attacking.

Got to imagine that Fonua is only on their t try to wear down Racing and he'll be off not too long into the second half.

He's not exactly wearing them down, he's spilling the ball, and his work rate is poor. But apart from that....

[Banquo]

well done Thacker there.

They need to be tons better in defence, esp at breakdown.

[16th man]

Some interesting decisions from Nige already.

Leicester look poor, lots of errors, slow to match up in defence, very predictable attacking.

Got to imagine that Fonua is only on their t try to wear down Racing and he'll be off not too long into the second half.

He's not exactly wearing them down, he's spilling the ball, and his work rate is poor. But apart from that....

That's not the only gap between Leicester's plan and execution at the moment.

[16th man]

Masoe dropped that, realised they'd lost the ruck, then picked it back up again. Pretty blatant penalty no?

[Banquo]

Some interesting decisions from Nige already.

Leicester look poor, lots of errors, slow to match up in defence, very predictable attacking.

Got to imagine that Fonua is only on their t try to wear down Racing and he'll be off not too long into the second half.

He's not exactly wearing them down, he's spilling the ball, and his work rate is poor. But apart from that....

That's not the only gap between Leicester's plan and execution at the moment.

lol, ...fair point, he's not alone.

[Banquo]

Youngs...ffs.

[Banquo]

Machenaud ffs

[Mellsblue]

Youngs...ffs.

Just awful

[16th man]

Is Fitzgerald wearing mittens?

[Mellsblue]

Tigers look overawed.

[Banquo]

Youngs...ffs.

Just awful

Between him and Fonua they are making life tricky for their team mates. Fitzgerald hasn't been picked for his handling either.

great kick tho

Hope Burns is ok- in good nick.

[morepork]

Snuffed.

[Banquo]

Tigers look overawed.

Not sure they know what to do; they've picked a physical back row, and are now looking to go wide.

[Banquo]

Great turnover....they are slowly getting into it, despite a plethora of mistakes and poor decisions.

Shame for Burns; I remember being at Kingsholm a couple of years ago, and Burns went off with a similar injury- bloke next to me says ' e's got ankles loike a fckin ballerina !'

[Banquo]

really poor after kicking a penalty.