Leicester vs Sale - Saturday

[Epaminondas Pules]

This defensive style we’ve employed of don’t drift, rush, blitz, shutdown doesn’t appear that effective. It is almost as if waiting for the attack to do something isn’t that good a defensive strategy.

19 v 37

[Epaminondas Pules]

Leatigaga wins another breakdown penalty!

[Epaminondas Pules]

Just prior to that the prop on the wing showed a turn of pace to rival my Nan who has been dead for 12 years now.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Tigers kick penalty to touch. Good lineout. Mail setup is nice and low, and driven over! Kerr scores. Ford converts.

26 v 37

[Epaminondas Pules]

Maul even!

[Epaminondas Pules]

Now Scott wins a penalty at the breakdown as Tigers actually prevent a Sale runner from making yards! Wowzers! It is almost like having some kind of aggressive defence helps.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Genge and Lavanini with good carries. Then some mediocre, then a knock on!

Thankfully the TMO calls Sale offside! Penalty Tigers.

[Epaminondas Pules]

After a break for De Jager injury Tigers take the scrum.

[Epaminondas Pules]

A mix of penalties and utter shite winds up with Steward taking a ball close in and scoring his first ever try.

31 v 37.

[16th man]

Bit of shithousing to pop over the pen and take away the bonus point.

[FKAS]

A mix of penalties and utter shite winds up with Steward taking a ball close in and scoring his first ever try.

31 v 37.

Sale under pressure conceding penalties like nobody's business. Role reversal from the end of the first half. After Curry went off Sale's effectiveness in defence fell away quite a bit.

Tigers ball in hand still look poor. The idiotic trying to play out of the 22 cost us the losing bonus point when Tempest makes another flip a coin decision, he was all over the shop today.

Tigers attack looks at best Championship level, hard work to get back into the game in the second half but we had chances in the first half we butchered.

Sale never looked like they got out of a out third gear. They made more work than they needed to of getting the TBP.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Final score 31 v 40. Somewhat flattering.

[Epaminondas Pules]

A mix of penalties and utter shite winds up with Steward taking a ball close in and scoring his first ever try.

31 v 37.

Sale under pressure conceding penalties like nobody's business. Role reversal from the end of the first half. After Curry went off Sale's effectiveness in defence fell away quite a bit.

Tigers ball in hand still look poor. The idiotic trying to play out of the 22 cost us the losing bonus point when Tempest makes another flip a coin decision, he was all over the shop today.

Tigers attack looks at best Championship level, hard work to get back into the game in the second half but we had chances in the first half we butchered.

Sale never looked like they got out of a out third gear. They made more work than they needed to of getting the TBP.

We looked utterly devoid of ideas in either attack or defence. And yeah Sale barely broke sweat and put 40 on us. We look like a Championship side and frankly should be. Thank goodness for Saracens!!

[Tigersman]

IMO attack will always be the hardest to sort, so not too worried about it.
Attack on the whole is more player focused. It's takes time for either a attack coach to work out the best attack for the players he has or the players to learn the attacks. (Let alone missing 3 starting backs)

Defence though should be "easier" to fix. It's a system and the best defences tend to be the ones that anyone can fit into it and it would be at the worst alright. So that is certainly a worrt.

[Epaminondas Pules]

IMO attack will always be the hardest to sort, so not too worried about it.
Attack on the whole is more player focused. It's takes time for either a attack coach to work out the best attack for the players he has or the players to learn the attacks. (Let alone missing 3 starting backs)

Defence though should be "easier" to fix. It's a system and the best defences tend to be the ones that anyone can fit into it and it would be at the worst alright. So that is certainly a worrt.

Agreed. Defence is far more system driven (at basic level, there are lots of nuances), but I’m not seeing any basic structure at all to it. We’ve struggled over the last few years against any phased attack, but now even off first phase it looks all over the place, positioning, decisions etc. We seek to be universally passive which is doomed to failure at almost any level really.

The first thing I’d look to fix at Tigers is defence. It is so blatantly obvious and has been for a few seasons! There seems little to any purpose. Connection between players, method and hell even noise and leadership. It is interesting, especially with the lack of crowds, how quiet the Tigers defence is in comparison to others. We used to love defence.

[p/d]

Ooh, I've heard very good things about him. What's his style like?

Puja

Sort of unusual, offbeat and a little unexpected. He’s unusual in an attractive and interesting way. There’s a word for it, but it escapes me right now....

Frankly, sounds like you're in a romantic comedy describing the guy that you're *definitely* not interested in.

Puja

[FKAS]

A mix of penalties and utter shite winds up with Steward taking a ball close in and scoring his first ever try.

31 v 37.

Sale under pressure conceding penalties like nobody's business. Role reversal from the end of the first half. After Curry went off Sale's effectiveness in defence fell away quite a bit.

Tigers ball in hand still look poor. The idiotic trying to play out of the 22 cost us the losing bonus point when Tempest makes another flip a coin decision, he was all over the shop today.

Tigers attack looks at best Championship level, hard work to get back into the game in the second half but we had chances in the first half we butchered.

Sale never looked like they got out of a out third gear. They made more work than they needed to of getting the TBP.

We looked utterly devoid of ideas in either attack or defence. And yeah Sale barely broke sweat and put 40 on us. We look like a Championship side and frankly should be. Thank goodness for Saracens!!

Steve Diamond doesn't agree "They are a different team now that Steve [Leicester head coach Steve Borthwick] has got hold of them. They fight for everything. It's the hardest game we've had this season."

Defence on the whole wasn't bad it was more the poor discipline that killed us. Stupid penalties, Clare making a complete hash of a simple throw in our own 22 (all he had to do was throw it to the biggest bloke on the pitch) and Scott bottling a kick chase leaving a massive hole for Sale to counter attack. You can put into place any system you want but unless you cut out or minimise the stupid errors then you'll struggle.

Sale also made great use of the breeze in the first half to dominate the kicking game. Their half backs were fantastic.

[Epaminondas Pules]

If you think defence wasn’t a problem then you need to take the rose tinted specs off. Seriously it is an absolute mess.

[FKAS]

If you think defence wasn’t a problem then you need to take the rose tinted specs off. Seriously it is an absolute mess.

I didn't say it wasn't a problem I said it wasn't that bad. Line speed still needs to be worked on particularly in the outside channels as we are not efficiently shutting down opposition back lines.

The point I was making is that all defences succumb to pressure eventually. We scored two tries late on because we were able to build some pressure in the Sale 22. Helped massively be penalty advantages which is what Sale benefitted from in the first half. As soon as you've got penalty advantage you don't have to be clinical the defence can only stop you and go back for more pressure. Stupid penalties and that inexcusable lineout error by Clare just piled pressure on us and defence that is improved but still a work in progress.

Discipline has much improved under Borthwick but yesterday we got on the wrong side of the ref, couple of unlucky decisions but we just weren't using the top two inches enough. We were fortunate not to have someone sin binned really. Mind you is Steward hadn't scored when he did Sale wouldn't have finished with 15.

Speaking of Steward another decent performance from him, positioning needs a little work but looks like our long and short term solution in the 15 shirt.

[fivepointer]

Tigers have conceded 157 pts in the 5 games since resumption. Their last 2 games they have conceded 46 and 40 pts. They appear to be getting worse.
Next up is a trip to a Wasps side who will may be close to full strength and are brimming with confidence.
Tigers arent going down so can afford to experiment a little, but you would hope to see some improvement in both performance and results.

[Tigersman]

The pack defending is more physical.
Considering Sale's pack carrying ability I thought we generally held them quite well, Liebenberg especially.


BUT the big issue is once the ball goes past the ruck.

[chris1850]

Bit of shithousing to pop over the pen and take away the bonus point.

Why? What's wrong with winning by the best margin possible. Its a professional game these days

[FKAS]

Tigers have conceded 157 pts in the 5 games since resumption. Their last 2 games they have conceded 46 and 40 pts. They appear to be getting worse.
Next up is a trip to a Wasps side who will may be close to full strength and are brimming with confidence.
Tigers arent going down so can afford to experiment a little, but you would hope to see some improvement in both performance and results.

All the games are high scoring at the minute though. Hard grounds and mix match teams are meaning there's a lot of tries being scored.

Tigers certainly need to tighten up and stop making errors that return us to our 22 piling the pressure on. The Wasps game will be hard watch as our seconds will be playing their firsts. Wasps can certainly score a lot in the backs where our defence is generally threadbare.

[Stom]

Tigers have conceded 157 pts in the 5 games since resumption. Their last 2 games they have conceded 46 and 40 pts. They appear to be getting worse.
Next up is a trip to a Wasps side who will may be close to full strength and are brimming with confidence.
Tigers arent going down so can afford to experiment a little, but you would hope to see some improvement in both performance and results.

I kinda agree and kinda disagree here.

This is a free hit. It's basically allowing Borthwick to tweak what he wants to do, something that will be worked out on the training paddock rather than on the pitch.

If Tigers continue this when next season comes around...Then they have a problem.

[16th man]

Tigers have conceded 157 pts in the 5 games since resumption. Their last 2 games they have conceded 46 and 40 pts. They appear to be getting worse.
Next up is a trip to a Wasps side who will may be close to full strength and are brimming with confidence.
Tigers arent going down so can afford to experiment a little, but you would hope to see some improvement in both performance and results.

All the games are high scoring at the minute though. Hard grounds and mix match teams are meaning there's a lot of tries being scored.

Sale, Glaws and Exeter all at or over 100pts scored in the last 3 games. 157 conceded in 5 games sounds really bad, but them that's including Exeter, Sale and Bath, 1st, 2nd and 5th (with a 4 from 5 win record since restart) in the league.