Tigers Vs Chiefs

[FKAS]

Steve Borthwick has named the Leicester Tigers matchday squad for the Gallagher Premiership season-opener against Exeter Chiefs on Saturday.

Ellis Genge will lead the side for the first time in a Premiership fixture at Mattioli Woods Welford Road since being appointed club captain.

The 26-year-old is named alongside Nic Dolly – in his first Premiership start – and Dan Cole in the Tigers front row, with Harry Wells and Calum Green paired as the Leicester locks.

Vice-captain Hanro Liebenberg starts at No8, with Tigers Academy graduates George Martin and Tommy Reffell the flankers.

Ben Youngs and George Ford are the starting half-backs, with Dan Kelly and Matt Scott named as the centre pairing in the Leicester midfield.

Nemani Nadolo and Harry Potter are the wings in the Tigers back three with full-back Freddie Steward.

Among the replacements, Borthwick includes a trio of Tigers to make their debut appearances in Tom Cowan-Dickie, Eli Snyman and Francois van Wyk, who are joined by Nephi Leatigaga and Ollie Chessum as the forwards on the bench. Jack van Poortvliet, Freddie Burns and Guy Porter are the replacement backs.

Previewing the season-opener at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, Borthwick said: “We enjoyed the chance to be back playing in front of Leicester Tigers supporters during the pre-season and are pleased we have the opportunity to start the new season with them on Saturday.

“We have had a good pre-season and laid some strong foundations for the campaign ahead, with a lot of hard work from each player on and off the pitch.”

Speaking about Saturday’s opponents, the Tigers head coach added: “The Chiefs have been the benchmark side in the league for more than half the past decade, appearing in every Premiership final since 2016.

“It is a squad packed with internationals and a wealth of experience who have also played together for a long time, which will be a good test for our group at this point on our journey against a team of this quality."

STARTING XV
15 Freddie Steward [35]
14 Harry Potter [16]
13 Matt Scott [25]
12 Dan Kelly [20]
11 Nemani Nadolo [16]
10 George Ford [105]
9 Ben Youngs [264]
1 Ellis Genge (c) [89]
2 Nic Dolly [3]
3 Dan Cole [264]
4 Harry Wells [124]
5 Calum Green [60]
6 George Martin [17]
7 Tommy Reffell [47]
8 Hanro Liebenberg (vc) [36]

REPLACEMENTS
16 Tom Cowan-Dickie **
17 Francois van Wyk **
18 Nephi Leatigaga [42]
19 Eli Snyman **
20 Ollie Chessum [8]
21 Jack van Poortvliet [21]
22 Freddie Burns [76]
23 Guy Porter [17]

** denotes Leicester Tigers senior debut

Exeter Chiefs: 15 Josh Hodge, 14 Jack Nowell, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Ollie Devoto, 11 Tom O'Flaherty, 10 Joe Simmonds, 9 Jack Maunder; 1 Alec Hepburn, 2 Jack Innard, 3 Harry Williams, 4 Will Witty, 5 Sean Lonsdale, 6 Jannes Kirsten, 7 Don Armand, 8 Rus Tuima
Replacements: 16 Jack Yeandle, 17 Ben Moon, 18 Sam Nixon, 19 Ryan McCauley, 20 Christ Tshiunza, 21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 22 Harvey Skinner, 23 Tom Hendrickson

The loss of Heyes and T Youngs is a real blow to Tigers. Steward Vs Hodge should be a good watch.

[fivepointer]

Exe missing quite a few in the back 5 of the scrum. Tuima gets his first start at 8. Tshiunza is named in a squad for the first time as is McCauley. Nixon comes from nowhere to get a spot on the bench!
Good to see Dolly get a start. Set piece bound to be a key area.

I expect it will be a full house at WR and a very tight game.

[jngf]

Exe missing quite a few in the back 5 of the scrum. Tuima gets his first start at 8. Tshiunza is named in a squad for the first time as is McCauley. Nixon comes from nowhere to get a spot on the bench!
Good to see Dolly get a start. Set piece bound to be a key area.

I expect it will be a full house at WR and a very tight game.

Tuima’s a big old unit (6’5” 19.5 stone) will be very interesting to compare his style to that of Simmonds!

[Puja]

Exe missing quite a few in the back 5 of the scrum. Tuima gets his first start at 8. Tshiunza is named in a squad for the first time as is McCauley. Nixon comes from nowhere to get a spot on the bench!
Good to see Dolly get a start. Set piece bound to be a key area.

I expect it will be a full house at WR and a very tight game.

Tuima’s a big old unit (6’5” 19.5 stone) will be very interesting to compare his style to that of Simmonds!

Whenever I've seen him play, he's looked like someone who's been used to being the big kid all through his growing up. Hasn't impressed me at all, although clearly Baxter's liking the look of him of late, so it'll be interesting to see if he's kicked on.

Very excited by that Leicester side. We've got a really good chance to lay down a marker at the start of the season and declare that we're in the fight for the playoffs and I think this team can do it.

Puja

[Scrumhead]

Agreed. Tigers have a good opportunity to make a statement of intent here.

I’m not a Tigers fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I like what Borthwick is doing and I’ll be interested to see how the England boys (and hopefuls) do.

[Mikey Brown]

28 seconds in and I'm just groaning watching them set up this caterpillar ruck. I'm tempted to say that's currently the worst part of the game.

Why keep up this pretence of wanting more ball in play time, yet you allow the 9 to leave a playable ball sat in the ruck for several minutes of every match?

[Scrumhead]

I agree. Although the first 5mins have already been better than last night’s crap fest.

Nic Dolly’s hair …

[Mikey Brown]

Not sure if any of you experts have flagged this before but Ford can time a pass pretty well can't he.

[Puja]

This is a better game than last night by a ridiculous distance and I'm not just saying that because Leicester are winning. Both sides are actually playing a rugby match!

Puja

[Puja]

I'm so pleased by this Leicester performance. It's not just the ambition or the quality of the skills, but the desire and belief. That Nadolo saved try on Nowell/Slade just exemplifies it - last season, that would've been a try, either through lack of defensive organisation to leave us short, lack of defensive communication and trust for Nadolo to leave Nowell to Youngs, lack of workrate from the players busting to get across and lack of fitness and pace from Nadolo who, let's be honest, probably would've been subbed at this point in a fast game last year. Everything is up 10% or more.

Turns out if you have a good coaching team and they get a good pre-season to work with the squad, you get a good performance. Who knew?!

Puja

[fivepointer]

Tigers good value for the win. A nice balance is developing in their attack where Ford was excellent. They took their chances while Exe were unusually inaccurate in the red zone.

I think I say this every season but when will officials get on top of backfoot offside at the breakdown? There were several instances today (and last night) where players were obviously offside yet arent penalised. Unless its 5m from the tryline this is just ignored.

[Puja]

A total of 24 tries across the 3 matches so far today suggests that Bristol-Saracens was the outlier, rather than the rule. Good to see.

Puja

[Scrumhead]

I thought Steward was excellent throughout and Martin and van Poortvliet very good. Credit to Tigers’ academy.

[Puja]

A moment should be taken to note Josh Hodge, who was superb in a losing cause for Exeter. Made two exceptional try stopping tackles - the first on a rampaging Nadolo in full flight and the second hunting down Steward trying to accelerate away - and was very unlucky that Leicester recycled and scored next phase on both. Also did his work under the high ball and attacked well. Not as eye-catching as Steward's performance, but just as good in its own way.

Puja

[FKAS]

A moment should be taken to note Josh Hodge, who was superb in a losing cause for Exeter. Made two exceptional try stopping tackles - the first on a rampaging Nadolo in full flight and the second hunting down Steward trying to accelerate away - and was very unlucky that Leicester recycled and scored next phase on both. Also did his work under the high ball and attacked well. Not as eye-catching as Steward's performance, but just as good in its own way.

Puja

He did play very well, I would say it's easier to tackle the big lads from behind but that's just good positioning from the young fullback. Don't damage yourself unnecessarily, let them run past you and then dive in at the spokes.

What I really enjoyed about that was Tigers the attacking game plan, running two players down a single channel so that Ford can pick his options. Then the offloads oh it was good to see us actually throw an offload. Made us look some much more dangerous.

Sinfield's defensive system was very satisfying as well. Great line speed, bouncing back to their feet and competing hard but mainly cleanly at the breakdown.

[Scrumhead]

Agreed. Hodge had a good game.

Good to see Tigers playing with some variety. They looked dangerous playing a power game and when they were more exapansive which bodes well for them. I’ve said it for a while, but I genuinely feel like they will be serious contenders.

[Danno]

Nice job, good match. Great to see Tigers starting to come back. I didn't much like them when they were dominant but the Prem is much poorer when they aren't in the mix. Get nasty again.

[francoisfou]

After Friday night's drivel, this was a cracking game. Ok, both sides had some first choice players unavailable, maybe Exeter more so, but that doesn't take away the fact that Tigers thoroughly deserved the win.
More of the same at Glaws next week!

A word too for Ian Tempest, who I thought had a good'un.

[Puja]

Just had a rewatch of the game and a few things popped out at me:

Do Exeter not have a main sponsor on the front of their shirts? That's surely some missed money right there? Either that, or sponsors aren't keen on dealing with a side who notably still need to have masks on the sideline (plus all the racism), compared to Leicester who clearly have hit the 85% vaccination threshold needed to be treated like adults.

Martin needs to learn to roll away instantly after a tackle. He got pinged twice, possibly a bit unfairly (Tempest is a deeply, deeply average referee and turned in his usual performance), but if he showed the same bounce to rolling away that he does to getting off the deck, it wouldn't be a problem. On a similar note, Dan Kelly consistently goes into tackles too high - quite apart from the risk of trouble if a player changes height, he's getting carried backwards far too often. These are small things in the game of young players, but easy fixes if the two of them want more England caps.

Jesus fuck, is George Ford a talented player. The first Steward try started on the Exeter 22 and Ford touched the ball 6 times. On 5 of those, he took the ball to the line and drew at least one defender, either to him or to one of the runners, and then released the ball to pick the perfect option of a runner going through the hole that he'd just engineered, including the try-scoring pass. And the 6th time, I'm being a bit harsh because he didn't pick the perfect pass, but one that was just pretty good and got over the gainline. There is literally no better 10 in the world than him when he's doing this and it's a great sign that the rest has rejuvenated him.

He doesn't do it alone though - Leicester were consistently offering him options, not just set moves, but players hanging around off his shoulder, confident that if they ran the line, he'd be making a gap appear. This is the Leicester attack that we want to see.

There were no 50:22s in the game, but the law did have an effect - there were a couple of times where Ford took a long clearing kick and looked to see if it was on, but Exeter had players back. Those players weren't in the onrushing defensive line though and it made the counterattack a much more viable option.

In terms of England selection, Ford and Steward were excellent, Martin was very promising, Genge still needs to run straighter but is a serious threat to the England 1 shirt, and Youngs was solidly okay. For Exeter, what the hell has happened to Henry Slade? He's too talented to be this ineffective.

Puja

[Puja]

After Friday night's drivel, this was a cracking game. Ok, both sides had some first choice players unavailable, maybe Exeter more so, but that doesn't take away the fact that Tigers thoroughly deserved the win.
More of the same at Glaws next week!

A word too for Ian Tempest, who I thought had a good'un.

Really? I thought he was rubbish. Gave some absolutely comedy decisions against Leicester when Exeter had that long spell of attacking the line but, having given those penalties, should absolutely have yellow carded someone from Leicester if he thought they'd given away 6 straight penalties on their own line. His opinion of holding on on the floor ranged from being there for half a second to hanging on for a good 5 seconds and his positioning was shocking - twice in the way of the Exeter scrum-half and getting clocked with the ball. He's got to stand somewhere, but not in the passing lane outside of 9!

He had absolutely no effect on the result - he's not like a John Lacey who picks a side to penalise early on - but he's not a top tier referee to my mind.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Do Exeter not have a main sponsor on the front of their shirts?

Puja

Looks like SW Comms, who normally are the main jersey sponsors, have moved from chest to right pectoral. I believe SW Comms are owned by Whelan so they may be looking for a different income stream. Also noticed the 150 under the badge so it might be a 1 year hiatus as a nod to that. Regardless, it didn’t help hide Tuima’s man boobs.

[Mellsblue]

After Friday night's drivel, this was a cracking game. Ok, both sides had some first choice players unavailable, maybe Exeter more so, but that doesn't take away the fact that Tigers thoroughly deserved the win.
More of the same at Glaws next week!

A word too for Ian Tempest, who I thought had a good'un.

Really? I thought he was rubbish.

Puja

This.

[Puja]

After Friday night's drivel, this was a cracking game. Ok, both sides had some first choice players unavailable, maybe Exeter more so, but that doesn't take away the fact that Tigers thoroughly deserved the win.
More of the same at Glaws next week!

Also, this is key. Last season, we had an impressive opening day victory, and then followed it up with an execrable performance at London Irish where we just refused to play rugby at all. We need to back this performance up - Gloucester away and an understrength Saracens at home are both eminently winnable games and, if Leicester want to be in the playoffs this year, they're games that we should be winning.

Puja

[francoisfou]

After Friday night's drivel, this was a cracking game. Ok, both sides had some first choice players unavailable, maybe Exeter more so, but that doesn't take away the fact that Tigers thoroughly deserved the win.
More of the same at Glaws next week!

A word too for Ian Tempest, who I thought had a good'un.

Really? I thought he was rubbish.

Puja

This.

Rubbish? From the bits I saw of the game, he seemed to let the game flow pretty well. The yellow for Wells was justified, but no other decisions I saw were dubious.

[fivepointer]

Tempest is never more than so-so. His standing in the passing lane and getting in the way of the SH pass when Exe were in a strong attacking position was amateurish. That kind of thing really irritates players.
Exe just werent really at the races. Hodge aside, their backs underperformed while their forwards lacked their customary efficiency. Innard was Ok. Tuima showed up pretty well, though its plain he needs some serious conditioning work. The locks are 4th/5th choice and Armand isnt the player he once was.
They might have to go with much the same players for the next few weeks so they will have to step up.