Tigers v Gloucester

A lot of WC players coming back, scrum looks more powerful and interesting to see Manu at 12.

15 Geordan Murphy (c)
14 Horacio Agulla
13 Matt Smith
12 Manusamoa Tuilagi
11 Alesana Tuilagi
10 Toby Flood
9 Sam Harrison
1 Marcos Ayerza
2 Tom Youngs
3 Dan Cole
4 George Skivington
5 Geoff Parling
6 Tom Croft
7 Julian Salvi
8 Thomas Waldrom

Replacements
16 George Chuter
17 Jonny Harris
18 Ryan Bower
19 Louis Deacon
20 Ben Woods
21 James Grindal
22 Scott Hamilton
23 George Ford

From the Tigers website:

Only Martin Castrogiovanni and Ben Youngs of the World Cup contingent remain sidelined.

"Castro has had a bit of a hamstring injury and we want to make sure that is right before we push him back in and Ben has returned from the World Cup unfit to play," said Cockerill.

Niall Morris, Ed Slater and Steve Mafi are rested after playing in each of the opening seven games. Micky Young, Mathew Tait, Anthony Allen, Boris Stankovich, Julian White and Billy Twelvetrees are unavailable due to injury.

I wonder if Youngs was actually fit enough to have played in the World cup.

That's an interesting mix of a team. Twelvetrees and Allen rested for the second week in succession and Sam Harrison gets his third game on the trot. Nice to see Bower and Harris on the bench as they look like decent prospects and so could do with the game time. Great starting front row and one I hope to see for a good chunk of the season with Castro coming in and out whenever needed.

Easy, easy, easy...

The Glaws side has been announced too, we've got our internationals back too:
Olly Morgan; James Simpson-Daniel, Henry Trinder, Lesley Vainikolo, Tom Voyce; Freddie Burns, Rory Lawson; Dan Murphy, Scott Lawson, Rupert Harden; Will James, Jim Hamilton; Alasdair Strokosch, Akapusi Qera, Luke Narraway (capt)

Replacements:

Darren Dawidiuk, Nick Wood, Shaun Knight, Tom Savage, Peter Buxton, Dave Lewis, Tim Taylor, Jonny May

Should be fun - looking forward to a pleasant, but cold, evening.

I'm afraid the Gloucester tight 5 will be right up against it.

Vainikolo vs Manu, SMASH FEST! Hmm tempted to pick up a ticket now. Was going to avoid it as Leicestershire is cold at the minute and Tigers current form has done little to warm us.

Tigers front row should have the edge.

James/Hamilton are much more physical second rows than Parling/Skivington.

bathmad wrote:I'm afraid the Gloucester tight 5 will be right up against it.

We will miss Wood, not because Murphy is a poor scrummager, but more that Woody is so good. I haven't seen enough of Youngs to judge how good a scrummager he is, but what I have seen has not suggested he will cause huge problems for Lawson. Harden is very underated and as Bath found out, he is a very good scrummager!

As LondonTiger says James and Hamilton is a very bulky boiler room - so we should see 2 decent scrums going head to head. All in all though, it's going to be very tough for Glaws to get points here.

That is a fearsome looking Tigers team. Interesting to see Manu at 12, I have said befor he may well be more suited to that position then 13.

Any one know what was actually wrong with Youngs? And if it is an injury is Cockerill trying to have a dig at the Eng management with his comment? (Completely fair of him if this is the case).

From the look of the teams you have to expect a Tigers victory and them laying down a marker that the rot stops here! But depending on how long it takes them to gel a loss could still happen.

Tigers are never that forthcoming with injury news but clearly Cockerill isn't happy about the state Youngs has returned in. Good to see Harrison keeping Grindal on the bench though as Harrison plays at a much better tempo. Youngs and Young injured isn't helpful neither are the injuries to Allen and Twelvetrees leaving little choice but to move Manu to 12.

HKC I'd never expect a weak scrum from a Glaws team, it's just not in your make up.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

HKC I'd never expect a weak scrum from a Glaws team, it's just not in your make up.

We had a weak scrum for a few years under Dean Ryan, which is why it is such a joy to see the return of driving mauls and a dominant scrum! In fairness a large part of that is due to Leicester, or more accurately Big Jim Hamilton!

Yes it was a disappointment to see him leave Welford Rd as he has come through the academy well and was a good aggressive lock. Unfortunatley at the time he was down the pecking order and had just decided to declare for Scotland and so wanted first team rugby. Shame as he is almost exactly what we need and are trying to groom Slater to be at the moment. At least with Deacon back we should have an enforcer available to us, enforcers aren't easy to come by these days and yet Glaws are fielding two.

Call me old fashioned but I like to see a tight five that are massive, aggressive and plain horrible. Set piece domination and control in the tight over fancy free flowing stuff everytime. Probabley because I mainly play 10/12 these days and a big nasty pack require me to do a lot less work.

I couldn't agree with you more, but from a different angle. I was a loosehead, so a powerful front 5 is my favourite style of rugby to watch, becasue those were the games I enjoyed playing in most (not that any of my packs dominated that often!).

We're very fortunate on the enforcer front. A lot of people felt we would suffer with the loss of Attwood, but James played better than him last year anyway. Furthermore the signing of Tom Savage is inspired. He was playing for Hatrpury 3rd XV 3 years ago and he has been one of our best forwards so far this season and guess what? He's another enforcer!! This does mean Alex Brown is our only lineout specialist and he's now out for 10 weeks, so this is a weakness you could exploit tomorrow night as you've got some good lineout technicians playing.

We certainly have some excellent athletic locks, particularly Parling who should be picking up an England cap sooner rather than later. I'd expect the lineout to be very good as long as Tom Youngs hold his nerve and the pack to extremely mobile as Youngs and Ayerza play almost as wrecking ball centres in the loose. We may well be suseptible to the aforementioned driving maul, which won't go down very well as it's a treasured Tigers favourite. The scrum should work well as long as Cole can do the damage quickly before your second row getting into their stride.

It's a big Tigers back division but there may well be some gaps for your quick boys to exploit though the Welford Rd pitch is famously narrow. Should be an interesting game.

I guess thats the strongets side Tigers have had out all season, pity iyts agauinst a full strength Gloucester side!

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Ominously, Leicester Tigers are back!

40-14 TBP win for Leicester against a strong Gloucester side.

Oh it's good to have the big guns back! Watch our Premiership and Heineken Cup!

maverickmak wrote:40-14 TBP win for Leicester against a strong Gloucester side.

Oh it's good to have the big guns back! Watch our Premiership and Heineken Cup!

It's only one game! try not to get carried away just yet!

Let me have my moment! This was lightyears ahead of the drivel Tigers have come out with this season, and that was a strong Gloucester side. To come out and put 40 on whilst still looking a bit rusty is a top effort.

Just saying that Tigers look ready to roar once again!

I know it is only the LV Cup, but finally the season has started.

The backs looked rusty, but to be expected with so many making their first appearance.

On a chilly midlands evening, what really cheered what was probably Welford Roads largest LV attendance was the pack. They were fantastic and made life easy for Harrison and Flood.

How was Flood? Did he look a bit more comfortable back at Leicester then we've seen over the last few months?

He was charged down for the first Gloucester try - though pass was in part to blame.

Other than that he had a good night, key roles in 3 tries, partnership with Manu at 12 looked good, 100% kicking from the tee.

All in all he looked like a player whou should have been playing for england during WC.

LondonTiger wrote:

On a chilly midlands evening, what really cheered what was probably Welford Roads largest LV attendance was the pack. They were fantastic and made life easy for Harrison and Flood.

Your pack was excellent and maybe gave ours a dose of reality that was needed. Even in our losses to Saints and Quins are pack, especially the scrum was better, but we were certainly 2nd best on Friday night. It should serve to show the youngsters the level they need to get to and this level will be just around the corner with Sarries this Saturday.