Leicester vs London Irish (Friday)

[Puja]

Leicester: Steward; Van Wyk, Moroni, Scott, Porter; Henry, Wigglesworth; De Bruin, T Youngs (capt), Cole, Green, Lavanini, Wells, Reffell, Brink.

Replacements: Clare, Leatigaga, Heyes, Chessum, Wallace, Van Poortvliet, McPhillips, Murimurivalu.

London Irish: Parton; Loader, Rona, Hepetema, Hassell-Collins; Jackson, Phipps; Goodrick-Clarke, Creevy, Chawatama, Mafi, Simmons, Rogerson (capt), Cowan, Tuisue.

Replacements: Cornish, Dell, Hoskins, Munga, Nott, Donnell, Meehan, Joseph.

[fivepointer]

2 good young FB's on view.

[Puja]

BBC article actually claims, "Leicester make eight changes as they name a near full-strength side for the visit of London Irish." It is to laugh.

Quite apart from our England contingent and the banned pair of Wiese and Liebenberg, there's no Nadolo or Montoya and Muri's on the bench. I'm assuming the former two aren't fit and there's some question over the latter, as this is a game that we really need to win if we're going to have ambitions of 6th/7th rather than lower.

Good to see a proper bench split finally though.

Puja

[Epaminondas Pules]

Hopefully Will Jospeh gets more than 80 minutes of splinters this week.

[Banquo]

2 good young FB's on view.

Yep, and I like Freeman at Saints too. Parton is a super runner.

[Mikey Brown]

Hopefully Will Jospeh gets more than 80 minutes of splinters this week.

Can a regular premiership game even go to extra time?

[Banquo]

2 good young FB's on view.

Yep, and I like Freeman at Saints too. Parton is a super runner.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Hopefully Will Jospeh gets more than 80 minutes of splinters this week.

Can a regular premiership game even go to extra time?

No. They often just seem that way

[FKAS]

BBC article actually claims, "Leicester make eight changes as they name a near full-strength side for the visit of London Irish." It is to laugh.

That does make me chuckle.

Missing and would replace the players in those positions

1. Genge
2. Montoya
6. Liebenburg
8. Weise
9. Youngs
10. Ford
11. Nadolo

That's only half the starting 15 and this season's best players (Weise and Liebenburg) and the player that has kept us in the league the last two seasons (Ford).

Anyway should be a good game. Some interesting match ups like the battle of the young fullbacks Steward Vs Parton. The outside centres, defensive lynchpin and big hitter Moroni Vs the running threat of Rona. The old leaders in the front row Youngs Vs Creevy (could only have been better if it was Montoya Vs Creevy). Lavanini Vs Simmonds in the battle of the brutes.

Hopefully Tigers can get the job done though I am concerned that LI managed to spoil our rolling maul last time out very successfully. Away at Bristol last weekend Bristol defending the rolling maul exceptionally well and we quickly ran out of attacking ideas. Let's hope we've been working on the attacking structure this week.

[Peej]

Is Montoya injured?

The more I watch teams like this the more I despair at how utterly shite Wasps have been

[Tigersman]

Is Montoya injured?

The more I watch teams like this the more I despair at how utterly shite Wasps have been

Believe so.

[Puja]

Good result for Leicester - Irish thoroughly flattered by the scoreboard and we should be disappointed (for the second week in a row) not to have got the try bonus point.

Gods, JVP is such a promising talent. That replay of him embarrassing Rona and then delivering the perfect pop for Murimurivalu to score was orgasmic. Needs work with Wiggy to sort out his box-kicking though - that charge down was the carbon copy of the 4 in a row where he got bullied by Sale on his debut a year or so back and it's a technique issue of him taking too long and not getting himself far enough away from the charge.

Puja

[Digby]

You can gain extra distance by simply angling your plant foot 45 degrees back, it obviates needing to take a step or steps but it's a harder kick

[Gloskarlos]

Irish actually played more rugby for me in that game. Also have a little sympathy with at least the first Irish card, he doesn’t move, stands his ground with quite bent knees and gets headbutted in the shoulder by the tigers player. Yes it’s head contact yes he could probably have gone lower, yes by the letter of the law it’s a card, but he’s not looked to smash his shoulder into the ball carrier at all, he’s been run into by someone leading with their head.

[FKAS]

Agree on JVP, he's 6ft and long legged. He's got a long wind up to those box kicks. He's a very good kicker but he's going to get targeted a lot of he doesn't tidy up that technique. I think we saw the best and worst of him tonight. The yellow card and penalty try was really naive.

LI were better in the first half bit did nothing with their advantage and Tigers dominated the second but and really failed to LI to bed with some really comedic errors. The assistant ref missing the LI backrow knocking the ball out of JVP's hands and into touch on that final 5m rolling maul was surprisingly incompetent but hey ho.

Another dumb red card in this one. Really deserved the red and the ban he's getting for such a lazy cheap shot.

[FKAS]

Irish actually played more rugby for me in that game. Also have a little sympathy with at least the first Irish card, he doesn’t move, stands his ground with quite bent knees and gets headbutted in the shoulder by the tigers player. Yes it’s head contact yes he could probably have gone lower, yes by the letter of the law it’s a card, but he’s not looked to smash his shoulder into the ball carrier at all, he’s been run into by someone leading with their head.

The first and last yellow cards were very harsh. Heyes must in particular be steering because that looked like it hit chest first and then rose up but both arms were always wrapped and it was the arm that slid up.

[Puja]

Irish actually played more rugby for me in that game. Also have a little sympathy with at least the first Irish card, he doesn’t move, stands his ground with quite bent knees and gets headbutted in the shoulder by the tigers player. Yes it’s head contact yes he could probably have gone lower, yes by the letter of the law it’s a card, but he’s not looked to smash his shoulder into the ball carrier at all, he’s been run into by someone leading with their head.

The first and last yellow cards were very harsh. Heyes must in particular be steering because that looked like it hit chest first and then rose up but both arms were always wrapped and it was the arm that slid up.

Agreed - the Heyes one looked awful in real time, but in slow motion I don't even think it was a penalty. Looked to me like chest-high and never actually made contact with the head.

Puja

[fivepointer]

Heyes and Rogerson were a bit unlucky.
Hepetema, though. These players have simply got to adapt their technique. It's inexcusable to get a red for reckless high challenges now.
Irish did well to come back and claim 2 points. They do play a bit and are good to watch.

[Tigersman]

Hepetema red, would've been a red like 5 years ago.
Heyes and Rogerson both need to learn that go lower and lose some ground in the tackle or go higher and risk a card

[Danno]

Fun enough for the neutral. Healy is winding me up more and more every week, I don't know how he doesn't get smacked in the mouth regularly.

[FKAS]

Irish actually played more rugby for me in that game. Also have a little sympathy with at least the first Irish card, he doesn’t move, stands his ground with quite bent knees and gets headbutted in the shoulder by the tigers player. Yes it’s head contact yes he could probably have gone lower, yes by the letter of the law it’s a card, but he’s not looked to smash his shoulder into the ball carrier at all, he’s been run into by someone leading with their head.

The first and last yellow cards were very harsh. Heyes must in particular be steering because that looked like it hit chest first and then rose up but both arms were always wrapped and it was the arm that slid up.

Agreed - the Heyes one looked awful in real time, but in slow motion I don't even think it was a penalty. Looked to me like chest-high and never actually made contact with the head.

Puja

Big bloke as a second tackler smashing a smaller guy. I agree real time I was dreading another red but on review I think the yellow was wrong and the TMO was trying to justify stopping the game for it. Penalty for the arm rising up off the chest and no more for me. Goo technique actually from the big man, bends at the waist and goes with both arms to wrap. Jackson's height does drop slightly and he's also significantly smaller than Heyes. I hope that the positive technique is a sign Borthwick is hammering it hope to the squad that you have to dip and wrap your arms in every tackle, no rugby league style stuff.