Bath vs Leicester - Sunday 3pm

[Scrumhead]

Wiese’s red mist costing Tigers points again.

The good stuff he does is great, but the inability to control himself is really costly. This isn’t the first time he’s more or less cost Tigers a game they shouldn’t have lost ...

[FKAS]

I wish Pearce had been that quick to penalise Bath for being off their feet in their 22.

[Which Tyler]

Pearce very generous to Bath and they finally get the try.

Generous by ignoring lots of Leicester penalty offences after their last warning for cards?
Generous by awarding 6 scrums to Leicester and 0 to Bath? (harshly initially, but fairly later on)

[FKAS]

Wiese’s red mist costing Tigers points again.

The good stuff he does is great, but the inability to control himself is really costly. This isn’t the first time he’s more or less cost Tigers a game they shouldn’t have lost ...

It was a bull shit call from Pearce. All he did was pull away a player that had grabbed hold of a teammate. He showed no indication of wanting to penalise Heyes or Mercer.

[Which Tyler]

I wish Pearce had been that quick to penalise Bath for being off their feet in their 22.

I wish he'd been that quick to put Leicester behind the line when defending non the line, or sacking a maul, or jumping across the lineout, or actually awarding the penalty he's called that'd result in a yellow card

[FKAS]

Pearce very generous to Bath and they finally get the try.

Generous by ignoring lots of Leicester penalty offences after their last warning for cards?
Generous by awarding 6 scrums to Leicester and 0 to Bath? (harshly initially, but fairly later on)

The collapsing call for a player that hadn't collapsed theaul and was on the floor because the Bath player pulled him out the maul?

[FKAS]

He also didn't show a card for Bath cheating at nearly every scrum nor for crumbling in the final scrum. Home advantage I guess.

[FKAS]

I wonder if Eddie is regretting his snubbing of Mercer now he's in this form and off to France. The battle between him and Weise were very entertaining.

The Youngs Vs Spencer battle looked to be firmly in the Tigers man's favour. The introduction of Wigglesworth has got to be seen as a retrospective error. He was too slow that tempered Tigers momentum after we started the second half well. Spencer held his nerve well for the final conversion.

[fivepointer]

The penalty against Wiese was spot on. He had no need to get himself involved and was rightly penalised for being a dick.

Credit to Spencer for nailing that winning conversion. That took some bottle and made up for his madcap decision to forego the kick at goal just before h/t.

[Scrumhead]

100% agree. Heyes and Mercer push each other and Pearce wouldn’t have penalised either as it was just a bit of handbags. When it’s over, Wiese yanks Mercer’s collar from behind. He deserved to be penalised.

Like I said earlier, great player, but definitely prone to losing his head.

[FKAS]

100% agree. Heyes and Mercer push each other and Pearce wouldn’t have penalised either as it was just a bit of handbags. When it’s over, Wiese yanks Mercer’s collar from behind. He deserved to be penalised.

Like I said earlier, great player, but definitely prone to losing his head.

Is it over if both sets of players still have hands on each other?

[Mikey Brown]

The penalty against Wiese was spot on. He had no need to get himself involved and was rightly penalised for being a dick.

Credit to Spencer for nailing that winning conversion. That took some bottle and made up for his madcap decision to forego the kick at goal just before h/t.

As another neutral I'd go with this. Very little to separate the teams, probably some incorrect decisions against both sides, but Weise chose to get in there with petulant bit of play when the scuffle had seemingly settled down on its own. Seems to be quite a feature of his game.

Mercer seems quite prone to the needless macho shoving contests too though, not actually sure what irked him initially.

[Mr Mwenda]

Graun report mentions spiral bombs several times.

[Epaminondas Pules]

The penalty against Wiese was spot on. He had no need to get himself involved and was rightly penalised for being a dick.

Credit to Spencer for nailing that winning conversion. That took some bottle and made up for his madcap decision to forego the kick at goal just before h/t.

As another neutral I'd go with this. Very little to separate the teams, probably some incorrect decisions against both sides, but Weise chose to get in there with petulant bit of play when the scuffle had seemingly settled down on its own. Seems to be quite a feature of his game.

Mercer seems quite prone to the needless macho shoving contests too though, not actually sure what irked him initially.

As a Tigers fan I go with it too. We cost ourselves the game with a series of stupid penalties. We can try to blame the ref all we like, but he handed us the scrum and was largely immaterial. We should be blaming bad decisions. That’s what cost us an hugely winnable game that we had all but won without stupidity.

And Heyes pushed Mercer and then Mercer pushed Heyes and then Wiese cost us a penalty for literally no reason whatsoever. It was nothing more than stupidity after an otherwise cracking game. Just walk away!! Smile and walk away!!

[FKAS]

Graun report mentions spiral bombs several times.

There was only one of note in the build up for the Tigers try. Was more a factor in the last game between the two because the weather wasn't great so that ball moved even more in the air that it does normally on a spiral bomb. That and Steward was allowed to chase more.

[Mr Mwenda]

Bugger, I thought I had a chance to claim five pounds for my spotting.

[Which Tyler]

Graun report mentions spiral bombs several times.

There was only one of note in the build up for the Tigers try. Was more a factor in the last game between the two because the weather wasn't great so that ball moved even more in the air that it does normally on a spiral bomb. That and Steward was allowed to chase more.

It was also notable in that first game because it was novel. It almost certainly wasn't its first appearance, but was the first time it really made a difference, and had Watson all over the place in terms of positiong

[Puja]

100% agree. Heyes and Mercer push each other and Pearce wouldn’t have penalised either as it was just a bit of handbags. When it’s over, Wiese yanks Mercer’s collar from behind. He deserved to be penalised.

Like I said earlier, great player, but definitely prone to losing his head.

Is it over if both sets of players still have hands on each other?

Whether they still have hands on each other or not, you can't yank someone away by the neck (which is what he did by grabbing the collar). I also have no issues with the one Heyes gave away at the lineout - it was just unnecessary petulance after getting suckered into giving away a free throw to the front for the third time in a row.

We threw that game away through completely unnecessary failures of discipline, nothing to do with the ref.

Puja

[Puja]

Have recovered a bit from the disappointment of us snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and can focus on the positives. Our defence was once again solid and structured and is definitely a foundation we can build on. Attack needs some work, but I'm happy with Borthwick building from the basics upwards.

The youngsters were decent again - Steward is a rock at the back (and was compared to Stimmo on commentary, which makes me wonder again if the main BT Sport commentator frequents the board). Kelly still has a fair few rough edges - absolutely gorgeous long pass on him, but he's got to lose the wind-up on it if he's going to be a top player - possibly lucky Joseph and his skill with intercepts went off early. Martin is a workhorse, but is nothing but rough edges at the moment. He'll be a hell of a player in a year.

Puja

[twitchy]

Your scrum looks great as well.

[Tigersman]

Just from my POV, annoying loss.
But find it hard to be that upset when what cost us the game has been something I have been dying to see from a Tigers side again and that's a nasty side.

These are young players even Wiese is only 25 and reading his background hasn't had a easy path to now.
In time they will hopefully mature, but to have players in the pack 25 or under in Whitcombe, Heyes, Henderson, Martin, Chessum, Liebenberg, Wiese, Reffell all performing to a very high physicality side of things it fills me with hope.

[Oakboy]

Just from my POV, annoying loss.
But find it hard to be that upset when what cost us the game has been something I have been dying to see from a Tigers side again and that's a nasty side.

These are young players even Wiese is only 25 and reading his background hasn't had a easy path to now.
In time they will hopefully mature, but to have players in the pack 25 or under in Whitcombe, Heyes, Henderson, Martin, Chessum, Liebenberg, Wiese, Reffell all performing to a very high physicality side of things it fills me with hope.

Two events came to mind as soon as I read your post. The first was Back punching somebody on the way off the pitch. Had both been carded? The other was Julian White decking the big boy. Happy days.

[Puja]

Just from my POV, annoying loss.
But find it hard to be that upset when what cost us the game has been something I have been dying to see from a Tigers side again and that's a nasty side.

These are young players even Wiese is only 25 and reading his background hasn't had a easy path to now.
In time they will hopefully mature, but to have players in the pack 25 or under in Whitcombe, Heyes, Henderson, Martin, Chessum, Liebenberg, Wiese, Reffell all performing to a very high physicality side of things it fills me with hope.

Two events came to mind as soon as I read your post. The first was Back punching somebody on the way off the pitch. Had both been carded? The other was Julian White decking the big boy. Happy days.

Hmmm. I like aggression and I like imposing ourselves physically on the opposition, but it needs to be done with a modicum of control and with the knowledge that there are 5000 television cameras watching nowadays. A nasty side isn't useful when it gives away penalties and yellows. Lawes and Underhill are both nasty, but they do it legally and productively - burying a 10 just about within time for no reason other than to put him off. Right now, we've got shoves and pushes and illegal clearouts, all of which are being caught and, even if they weren't pinged, would be no more than petty bullshit anyway. I don't want them confusing hard and aggressive with cheap and petty.

It's a young and inexperienced team though, as you mentioned, and it's far better than the supine capitulation we saw under O'Connor and Murphy, so hopefully they'll mature into Martin Johnsons rather than Gareth Archers.

Puja

[Banquo]

Just from my POV, annoying loss.
But find it hard to be that upset when what cost us the game has been something I have been dying to see from a Tigers side again and that's a nasty side.

These are young players even Wiese is only 25 and reading his background hasn't had a easy path to now.
In time they will hopefully mature, but to have players in the pack 25 or under in Whitcombe, Heyes, Henderson, Martin, Chessum, Liebenberg, Wiese, Reffell all performing to a very high physicality side of things it fills me with hope.

Two events came to mind as soon as I read your post. The first was Back punching somebody on the way off the pitch. Had both been carded? The other was Julian White decking the big boy. Happy days.

Hmmm. I like aggression and I like imposing ourselves physically on the opposition, but it needs to be done with a modicum of control and with the knowledge that there are 5000 television cameras watching nowadays. A nasty side isn't useful when it gives away penalties and yellows. Lawes and Underhill are both nasty, but they do it legally and productively - burying a 10 just about within time for no reason other than to put him off. Right now, we've got shoves and pushes and illegal clearouts, all of which are being caught and, even if they weren't pinged, would be no more than petty bullshit anyway. I don't want them confusing hard and aggressive with cheap and petty.

It's a young and inexperienced team though, as you mentioned, and it's far better than the supine capitulation we saw under O'Connor and Murphy, so hopefully they'll mature into Martin Johnsons rather than Gareth Archers.

Puja

Even Johnson had to mature into being Martin Johnson....

[Numbers]

Could Mercer be a Lions bolter, he's playing some excellent rugby at the moment.