Tigers Vs Quins

[FKAS]

TIGERS XV:

15 Freddie Steward [31]

14 Guy Porter [16]

13 Matt Scott [21]

12 Dan Kelly [16]

11 Nemani Nadolo [11]

10 George Ford [103]

9 Ben Youngs [259]

1 Ellis Genge [84]

2 Tom Youngs (c) [211]

3 Dan Cole [259]

4 Harry Wells [119]

5 Calum Green [58]

6 George Martin [13]

7 Tommy Reffell [43]

8 Jasper Wiese [15]

REPLACEMENTS:

16 Charlie Clare [30]

17 Luan de Bruin [16]

18 Joe Heyes [66]

19 Hanro Liebenberg [31]

20 Cyle Brink [15]

21 Richard Wigglesworth [12]

22 Zack Henry [22]

23 Kini Murimurivalu [18]

HARLEQUINS: 15 Tyrone Green, 14 Joe Marchant, 13 Luke Northmore, 12 James Lang, 11 Nathan Earle, 10 Marcus Smith, 9 Danny Care; 1 Joe Marler, 2 Scott Baldwin, 3 Wilco Louw, 4 Matt Symons, 5 Stephan Lewies (c), 6 Tom Lawday, 7 Jack Kenningham, 8 Alex Dombrandt
Replacements: 16 Joe Gray, 17 Santiago Garcia Botta, 18 Will Collier, 19 Dino Lamb, 20 James Chisholm, 21 Martin Landajo, 22 Will Edwards, 23 Ben Tapuai

Cole Vs Marler is always a good show. Youngs the England incumbent vs Care the media darling. Ford the master Vs Smith the apprentice. Weise Vs Dombrandt so que massive collisions. Should be a good watch.

Only annoyance is that Brown the idiot has got himself banned so we miss out on Steward Vs Brown. The aerial dual there would have been great.

[Mikey Brown]

Yep. Good calls there. Backrow battle should be good. I hope Care has his head switched on this week. He was pants on the weekend.

It seems very strange we still have Lasike and Tapuai and neither can get a start with Esterhuizen out.

I'm glad we've got Marchant there to keep an eye on Nadolo. Wouldn't fancy Earle defending opposite him.

[Scrumhead]

Yeah, strange re. Lasike. He looked good off the bench last week and is the closest thing we have to a like-for-like replacement for Andre.

Earle is my biggest worry TBH ... he’s a shadow of the player he was pre-injury and it’s strange because my issues with him are less on the physical side and more on the tactical and skills side. He looks completely out of place in defence in attack and his handling’s been woeful ... I’d understand a bit more if he was nervous about contact or was less inclined to back his pace etc. Weird.

[FKAS]

In terms of back three I'm a little worried. Tigers haven't got much pace on the wings. We've named our biggest and most physical options. On the upside the walking liability that is van Wyk isn't there so that helps lower the blood pressure but if Quins get on the outside we'll be looking hopefully at Steward to make another try saving tackle. Ball in hand we should be asking some questions though.

I hope Tigers are winning going into the 55th minute cause Wigglesworth isn't going to add much.

[Mellsblue]

Weise Vs Dombrandt so que massive collisions.

Loving how one wrong letter has completely inverted the meaning of the sentence. Also a big fan of all and any franglais.

[Scrumhead]

More to the point than ‘cue vs. que’, that statement might be accurate for Wiese, but Dombrandt’s game is not about ‘massive collisions’. If anything, Dombrandt’s game is about picking good lines and using his bulk to bust through half tackles/soft shoulders. He’s actively looking to minimise the collisions (not out of fear, I should add). In other words, Wiese runs at faces, Dombrandt runs at spaces.

Should be a good game. Quins are a little depleted in the back line and it’s a shame that we won’t see Steward vs. Brown which could have been an informative contest and a good yardstick of where Steward is up to.

[fivepointer]

Thought Kenningham had a good game last week. One to keep an eye on. I rate Northmore so its good to see him starting at 13.
Smith v Ford is possibly the pick of the many interesting match ups.

[FKAS]

More to the point than ‘cue vs. que’, that statement might be accurate for Wiese, but Dombrandt’s game is not about ‘massive collisions’. If anything, Dombrandt’s game is about picking good lines and using his bulk to bust through half tackles/soft shoulders. He’s actively looking to minimise the collisions (not out of fear, I should add). In other words, Wiese runs at faces, Dombrandt runs at spaces.

Should be a good game. Quins are a little depleted in the back line and it’s a shame that we won’t see Steward vs. Brown which could have been an informative contest and a good yardstick of where Steward is up to.

To be fair to Weise he doesn't like running over people if he can help it. He does have good bit of footwork and acceleration for the busting through an arm tackle. In the modern game if you run at faces directly you've got to an absolute monster otherwise most defences will simply spit you back out.

I still expect both teams to be looking to put some big shots on the opposition 8 early to try and keep them quiet during the game.

[Scrumhead]

Thought Kenningham had a good game last week. One to keep an eye on. I rate Northmore so its good to see him starting at 13.
Smith v Ford is possibly the pick of the many interesting match ups.

Kenningham is looking very promising. He’s good over the ball, a great chop tackler and can carry a bit as well. He’s not a Will Evans, but he’s really taking his opportunity.

[FKAS]

Hmm first blood for Ford Vs Smith as the master pulls the apprentice out the line and send Scott scampering over for the first try of the game.

[twitchy]

All tigers so far.

[FKAS]

Quins hit back though with some lovely offloads though. Quins are always dangerous, can't give them an inch.

[FKAS]

Pretty sure the " taken in the air" there was because the Quins lock takes out the chaser and he falls into the Quins fullback but hey ho.

[FKAS]

Does the TMO only know how to buzz in for Quins?

[twitchy]

Fun game.

[Stom]

Smith is excellent, but Ford is just incredible.

[FKAS]

Game management from Quins has been poor. Tigers down 2 men and they play in their own 22? Crazy.

[fivepointer]

Rousing effort from Quins in the last 15 minutes or so and they did well to claim a couple of BP's. Tigers the better side overall and good value for the win.

[Scrumhead]

Game management from Quins has been poor. Tigers down 2 men and they play in their own 22? Crazy.

TBH, I think we were just trying to keep the ball to find space against 13 men. Not crazy, we just did a very bad job of it.

Overall, I’d agree Tigers were probably the slightly better team. Smith didn’t have a vintage game in front of Eddie which was a bit of a shame. He wasn’t bad and played a big role in several tries, but unfortunately, stuff like the charge down and a rare off day from the tee might work against.

On the other hand, I though Marchant was excellent in attack and defence.

[FKAS]

TBP win will do me just fine. Got most of the big names off to keep them fresh as well. Just hope Weise is ok.

The TMO kept Quins in the game by insisting on a card for Genge (seemed a stupid card to me but hey ho). Had Quins gone down to 14 whilst Tigers were purring I think the game would have been dead by half time. Youngs and Ford sent out a massive reminder of why they are the incumbents for England they gave out a lesson in game management to Care and Smith. Quins only started coming back at Tigers in the second half after Youngs went off and that intensified after Ford went off.

Some of that attacking structure in the first half is the best we've seen in years from Tigers. I really hope that's just the start of things to come.

[FKAS]

Game management from Quins has been poor. Tigers down 2 men and they play in their own 22? Crazy.

TBH, I think we were just trying to keep the ball to find space against 13 men. Not crazy, we just did a very bad job of it.

Overall, I’d agree Tigers were probably the slightly better team. Smith didn’t have a vintage game in front of Eddie which was a bit of a shame. He wasn’t bad and played a big role in several tries, but unfortunately, stuff like the charge down and a rare off day from the tee might work against.

On the other hand, I though Marchant was excellent in attack and defence.

We were missing both props though. Kick too touch and then contest, Tigers were missing their primary lifters. Tigers won the yellow cards period 3 nil because of keeping the ball in the Quins 22. Over playing a 15-13 advantage seems to be a problem for a few teams in recent weeks.

Marchant was exceptional. He really needs to be more involved with England. Green looked dangerous at 15, far more than I've seen him on the wing. Good sign for Quins going forward

[Puja]

Game management from Quins has been poor. Tigers down 2 men and they play in their own 22? Crazy.

TBH, I think we were just trying to keep the ball to find space against 13 men. Not crazy, we just did a very bad job of it.

Overall, I’d agree Tigers were probably the slightly better team. Smith didn’t have a vintage game in front of Eddie which was a bit of a shame. He wasn’t bad and played a big role in several tries, but unfortunately, stuff like the charge down and a rare off day from the tee might work against.

On the other hand, I though Marchant was excellent in attack and defence.

We were missing both props though. Kick too touch and then contest, Tigers were missing their primary lifters. Tigers won the yellow cards period 3 nil because of keeping the ball in the Quins 22. Over playing a 15-13 advantage seems to be a problem for a few teams in recent weeks.

Marchant was exceptional. He really needs to be more involved with England. Green looked dangerous at 15, far more than I've seen him on the wing. Good sign for Quins going forward

Quins lacked a bit of on-field nous - when we were down to 13, they had a lineout on attack and they threw a cute one to the front for Louw to get destroyed as soon as he caught it. I cannot think of a better time to try and get good middle or back attacking ball than when the opposition are down their two main lifters.

On the lineout, Quins did a good job disrupting us - hopefully we're keeping our powder dry on clever moves for Friday, as we can not afford to be taken apart there like Bath were.

Agreed with you that that's the best I've seen us attack in years. More of that please! The comeback and stressful ending were a bit worrying - I think Borthwick should give them a bit of a bollocking for thinking the game was done with 20 minutes to go, but he doesn't have too much of a leg to stand on given he was (rightly) making subs with Friday in mind!

All things told, a very pleasing 5 points and another good step forward in the development of our style. Happy with that.

Puja

[FKAS]

One thing is for sure I hope JVP is on the bench for the final. Wigglesworth didn't really show either the control nor the attacking impetus required when he came on for Benny.

I agree I don't know what Quins were thinking in the double yellow card period. Their rolling maul was pretty good with two props in the bin surely that was the go to play, ideally suck in as many Tigers players as possible and then put it in the hands of Marchant and Green. They tried to over complicate things. Sometimes simple rugby is just the way to go.

I hope Weise is fit because we did lack impact when he went off. We'll need a longer stint from Gengey as well, de Bruin isn't as good in the loose and struggled at the scrum time as well. He's really a tighthead that can cover loosehead so can't blame him really. I'm optimistically hoping Montoya might be fit enough for the bench as well.

[Spiffy]

George Ford should really be in the Lions' squad. If Gatland is seeing Farrell as a 12, then he should have named him as a 12, not a 10, left out a spare midfielder (say Daly, whose form did not really merit selection), and included Ford as a 10. Who cares if Daly can kick 50 yard penalties. If he is not on the pitch (because of selection of the best players) when such penalties are awarded, he can't attempt them.
In any case, Farrell has done nothing of note to warrant his selection as a FH (or even, in the eyes of many, as a 12.)

[Puja]

George Ford should really be in the Lions' squad. If Gatland is seeing Farrell as a 12, then he should have named him as a 12, not a 10, left out a spare midfielder (say Daly, whose form did not really merit selection), and included Ford as a 10. Who cares if Daly can kick 50 yard penalties. If he is not on the pitch (because of selection of the best players) when such penalties are awarded, he can't attempt them.
In any case, Farrell has done nothing of note to warrant his selection as a FH (or even, in the eyes of many, as a 12.)

Indeed. That little pass to Scott for the first try had no rights being broadcast before the watershed. The ability to pick the right pass, courage to take the ball right to the gainline and invite defenders onto him, with the skill to disguise and then execute...oof, it was downright sexual.

Puja