Leicester Tigers v Bath Rugby, Welford Road, Saturday 4.30pm

[FKAS]

I’m with Spiffy. Guido Petti is a far better player IMO. I can’t say I’ve ever been impressed by Lavanini. He’s more notable for his all too regular (and deliberate) foul play than anything positive he contributes.

Petti might well be the better player but not what we needed. We needed the 20 stone monster more. Tigers pack was too lightweight and needed more aggression. Ideally we'd have got both of them but I guess we didn't have room under the cap for that as we've signed Enever this summer who is pretty cost effective.

Despite Lavanini's reputation as I've pointed out before, no reds and no citings since he joined Tigers. Quite frankly Tigers have had players branded thugs before and a few of them were there when England won the 2003 world cup. You don't win by being nice. If anything I want Lavanini to get a little more fired up, start intimidating his opposite number. Tom Youngs has absolutely no worries dealing out some on field justice and whilst I don't want Lavanini to go quite that far there's nothing wrong with leaning on his reputation to make the opposition think twice.

[Tigersman]

Lavanini has IMO been a good signing.
But since restart he has been quiet, maybe being a new dad has taken a toll as FKAS says? Maybe not having Gigena to translate made things a bit lost in training etc.


Either way saw
George Martin ended the game on 23 tackles, 19 m, 1 offload
Which puts him top of the Tackle count for the game (Beating underhill by 2 tackles), Tops in Tigers forwards starters Meters carried, and also depressingly the only Tiger forward to offload.
Not bad for a lad who was 18 in July and was playing out of position against Ellis, Underhill, TF.

Harry simmons had some good stats
54m gained, 2 defenders beaten, 1 Try assist,
Needs to work on positioning still.

[Banquo]

Lavanini has IMO been a good signing.
But since restart he has been quiet, maybe being a new dad has taken a toll as FKAS says? Maybe not having Gigena to translate made things a bit lost in training etc.


Either way saw
George Martin ended the game on 23 tackles, 19 m, 1 offload
Which puts him top of the Tackle count for the game (Beating underhill by 2 tackles), Tops in Tigers forwards starters Meters carried, and also depressingly the only Tiger forward to offload.
Not bad for a lad who was 18 in July and was playing out of position against Ellis, Underhill, TF.

Harry simmons had some good stats
54m gained, 2 defenders beaten, 1 Try assist,
Needs to work on positioning still.

Isn't Simmons normally a 9?

[fivepointer]

Either way saw
George Martin ended the game on 23 tackles, 19 m, 1 offload
Which puts him top of the Tackle count for the game (Beating underhill by 2 tackles), Tops in Tigers forwards starters Meters carried, and also depressingly the only Tiger forward to offload.
Not bad for a lad who was 18 in July and was playing out of position against Ellis, Underhill, TF.

Harry simmons had some good stats
54m gained, 2 defenders beaten, 1 Try assist,
Needs to work on positioning still.

Martin also won most of Tigers l/outs. All in all, a very good days work from the lad who did not look remotely out of place. Now play him at lock.

[Tigersman]

Lavanini has IMO been a good signing.
But since restart he has been quiet, maybe being a new dad has taken a toll as FKAS says? Maybe not having Gigena to translate made things a bit lost in training etc.


Either way saw
George Martin ended the game on 23 tackles, 19 m, 1 offload
Which puts him top of the Tackle count for the game (Beating underhill by 2 tackles), Tops in Tigers forwards starters Meters carried, and also depressingly the only Tiger forward to offload.
Not bad for a lad who was 18 in July and was playing out of position against Ellis, Underhill, TF.

Harry simmons had some good stats
54m gained, 2 defenders beaten, 1 Try assist,
Needs to work on positioning still.

Isn't Simmons normally a 9?

He is although he made his Tigers debut at 15 and played around half his academy games at 15 (Came up with white)

[Mikey Brown]

Either way saw
George Martin ended the game on 23 tackles, 19 m, 1 offload
Which puts him top of the Tackle count for the game (Beating underhill by 2 tackles), Tops in Tigers forwards starters Meters carried, and also depressingly the only Tiger forward to offload.
Not bad for a lad who was 18 in July and was playing out of position against Ellis, Underhill, TF.

Harry simmons had some good stats
54m gained, 2 defenders beaten, 1 Try assist,
Needs to work on positioning still.

Martin also won most of Tigers l/outs. All in all, a very good days work from the lad who did not look remotely out of place. Now play him at lock.

Could he necessarily do all that while playing there?

[FKAS]

Either way saw
George Martin ended the game on 23 tackles, 19 m, 1 offload
Which puts him top of the Tackle count for the game (Beating underhill by 2 tackles), Tops in Tigers forwards starters Meters carried, and also depressingly the only Tiger forward to offload.
Not bad for a lad who was 18 in July and was playing out of position against Ellis, Underhill, TF.

Harry simmons had some good stats
54m gained, 2 defenders beaten, 1 Try assist,
Needs to work on positioning still.

Martin also won most of Tigers l/outs. All in all, a very good days work from the lad who did not look remotely out of place. Now play him at lock.

Could he necessarily do all that while playing there?

He was all action in the academy but that was the academy. Despite being a unit already he probably hasn't finished growing so like Itoje and Isiekwe will start at blindside and then move into lock in a year or two. For a player so young he played very well and his hype seems justified which is nice.

Harry Simmons had a quiet but efficient game. A move to the back three might be best for him given the conveyor belt of talent Tigers have at 9. A back three player with an accomplished kicking and passing game is not something to sniff at either. Back three didn't really look like it was working until Steward came on though.

[Puja]

Martin also won most of Tigers l/outs. All in all, a very good days work from the lad who did not look remotely out of place. Now play him at lock.

Could he necessarily do all that while playing there?

He was all action in the academy but that was the academy. Despite being a unit already he probably hasn't finished growing so like Itoje and Isiekwe will start at blindside and then move into lock in a year or two. For a player so young he played very well and his hype seems justified which is nice.

Harry Simmons had a quiet but efficient game. A move to the back three might be best for him given the conveyor belt of talent Tigers have at 9. A back three player with an accomplished kicking and passing game is not something to sniff at either. Back three didn't really look like it was working until Steward came on though.

I'd like to see more of Simmons at wing - especially with White's glacial pace to a breakdown, it would be useful to have a Healey-esque second 9.

I think the back three starting to work was also in part moving Henry out of it. He looks every inch a 10 who can play 15 if needs must, rather than a genuine 15 option.

On the earlier conversation, Lavanini at his best would be better for us than Petti. Lavanini at the level of interest that we've seen from him so far is not.


I have to say, we had better absolutely gub Irish in midweek to make it worthwhile that embarrassment though.

Puja

[Raggs]

F me... Joe Heyes in the rugby paper says he's dropped 7kg, and is now 115kg. That's not that scary/impressive, not bad, what's scary is the fact that 115kg is the lightest he's been since he was 13...

[Mikey Brown]

The Bath kit looks like they've just forgotten to take their training bibs off.

Tom Dunn looks like he could be Charlie Sharples's dad.

[Mikey Brown]

A rolling maul try in an empty stadium where you can hear every grunt and groan really shows rugby for the monstrosity that it is.

[Scrumhead]

Ha - it really is weird ...

I’m pretty sure I heard one of the Worcester players shout ‘sorry’ as a wind up when they scored from a maul on Friday night.

[Which Tyler]

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