View From the Stand - Tigers v Quins

You know, as the home team, you are getting a pasting when the opposition fans reckon the ref is favouring their team. They probably do not mean it, but the pity they are showing is symptomatic of the day.

One team looked like defending champions - the other didn't. Sadly for me it was Quins who lived up to their title. They were well deserving of the victory.

There is not much point doing a detailed match report as anyone who saw the ESPN coverage had a better view. That also covers my first gripe - several times Dave Pearson went to the TMO but the 20k+ crowd had no idea what was going on. For Tom Williams try we did not even know he had gone to the TMO - presumably to check whether the offload earlier in the move was forward (obviously not though it looked as forwad as the one from Flood to Goneve in an identical situation in the 2nd half). The incident between Mafi and Brown left us perplexed, what was it for, was they penalty the outcome of the TMO or for something else. If the match is going to stop for several minutes the crowd deserve to know what the hell is going on.


So some observations:

In defence Tigers tended to tackle lower than Quins who tended to go for the ball. This probably explains why Toby Flood, who was trying to raise the ball above the challenge so as to pass, took several challenger to the face. He was a target for fierce tackling all day, some of it some way off the ball.

In a attack Tigers try to swing the ball wide but passed poorly, while Quins played a much tighter offloading game. Tigers far too often took the ball into contact and went to ground, allowing Quins to spoil and slow the ball thus enabling a very good Quins defence to re-organise. Quins constant moving of the ball before going into contact, constantly changing the direction the ball was moving always posed the Tigers defence a tough challenge.

Quins by the second half were reading the Tigers lineout. Far too often they were putting up a single jumper who was right in front of the intended recipient in fact you could hear Robshaw screaming where it was going to. Youngs will get some unfair blame for his throwing, it was more good jumping.

I was convinced on one attack, with Pearson playing advantage for a challenge on Hamilton, Flood was hit by a late and high charge. Pearson disagreed so I can only assume my sighting was wrong.

I wonder if a Quins player may be in trouble with the citing officer? I did not see it as was watching the ball, but those around me (including Quins fans) seemed to think a Quin kicked a Tiger squarely in the back off the ball.

Penultimately, neither JTH nor Allen are the answer to Englands woes at 12 - both were one dimensional and poor.

And finally - the better team won.

I was playing at the time and thus did not see te match and will refrain from commenting fully until I do, but bad luck old chap. Hope our injuries aren't too serious and that you guys can field Youngs, Manu etc again soon

CJ there was a huge difference between the teams, well a combination of small differences, meaning we got exactly what we deserved.

I am most annoyed about all the time spent waiting for a TMO decision with the crowd twiddling their thumbs. Probably the clubs fault as there was no big screen, but at he very least a tannoy announcement to say what was going on would be good.

Yea I can imagine the frustration, it'd be a lot easier if there was a big screen to see the replays on though.

I have to be honest and say that I never expected that result. But Quins were just the far better team on the day, they looked more comfy with the ball and their defence was never really challenged.

The pack, Care and Evans were the stars of the show and all looked far better then their opposite numbers. JTH did what was needed but I agree isn't an international. Hopper was flaky in defence but offered some genuine pace and good angles in attack which is something that none of the back three really did.

Brown was solid under the high ball and in defence but didn't ever get going in attack, same with Monye. Williams looked good before his injury (Groin I think?) and Chissholm again impressed before his injury.

Tiger's gained scrum superiority once Cole and Logo came on.

Quins defence was seriously stretched a number of times - but they scrambled well.

Interestingly Williams try was met with near silence. I asked the Quins supporter in front of me why, and he responded "We just don't like him at Quins" !!

Anyway there is a very good reason Quins and Saints have 4 from 4 - right now they are the best teams.

I saw this coming. The Tigers backline contained so little flair particularly in the back three and it was definitely not the game for Stanko. The sky+ recording waiting for me at home will be an annoying watch.

Sam - try not to scream when for the 12th time Allen declines to pass and pushes off his right foot to run straight into Marler or Robshaw. Try not to faint when he finally passes the ball.

Goneva and Morris offered real threat, but the passing was so laboured. Even when we offloaded rather than taking contact, the direction the ball was travelling never changed.

The biggest thing though was that we looked to offload in contact - with Quins taking hitting the man at ball level it was nigh well impossible to achieve so ball went to ground and Quins were expert in getting all over it.

By comparison Quins looked to offload before contact, kept shifting the point of contact and Tigers tackled lower so Quins were able to offload.

The ambition to run, including from own 22, was there but for the 4th match in a row the execution was poor. Against lesser sides we get away with it - but against good defences - no hope.

Tigers did win a lot more turn overs, something to be pleased with at least.

And I have to say it was a pleasure to hear the crowd booing us at the end of the game, looking forward to the reverse fixture

Nah, they were booing the ref.

Should have been booing the team.

Actually i will correct that slightly, the crowd were not happy with some of the perceived off the ball stuff that was going on. Late hits, kicks, forearms to the head. But as the citing officer has not been interested that was unfair.

Were they booing Leicester then?

Can't rest on the team's laurels- got Sarries soon, different but equally difficult challenge. Might see Botica start at 12 next match!

Yea there was a lot of talk about Botica playing 12 next week. Not sure how him and Hopper would go in defence but hopefully Lowe will be back by then.

Maybe see a backline of:

9. Care
10. Evans
11. Monye
12. Botica
13. Lowe
14. Hopper
15. Brown

Going by the fact Smith and Stegmann haven't even been close to a look in so far this season and how hit and miss they were last season i'd stick Hopper on a wing and have charlie Walker on the bench.

Might need to have Wallace on the bench as well as we were quite poor on the deck. Fa'Asavalu has had a bit of a quite start to the season so far too.

No. No more playing centres on the wing when we have perfectly good wingers to step in! Especially as Hopper is hardly a rock at centre, and our next few matches are hard one's. I'd much rather see Smith or Stegmann or Walker (or OLH or even Burns)

yappysnap wrote:Were they booing Leicester then?

Dave Pearson (and goodliffe) primarily, and Mike Brown secondary I guess. Was more yelling than booing.

I'd imagine they were unimpressed with the team, losing by that margin at Welford Rd is unacceptable. Cockers isn't universally popular either.

Gotta add that I love the noise at WR, what is it 20000 people capacity? Sounds amazing when they get into the game, is love to get there for a game.

I couldn't believe how comfortable that was for Quins. Without Tuilagi (and Youngs) Tiger's certainly lack star quality in the backs. I'm rapidly losing faith in Flood in terms of England, and if Ford wasn't being treated in the standard Leicester way then Tiger's might look a bit more threatening.

Having watched the game back last night, I'm not so worried about Flood. He was playing off a very slow scrum half against a team whose line speed in defence was so close to international quality that you had to check on the replay to be sure they weren't offside (and they weren't, just very very close to it). Add to that how much Quins slowed down the Tigers' ball, and Flood had almost no time on the ball at all.

Had Youngs been playing, he'd have been able to do much more. I've always felt that he's vulnerable when his forwards are on the back foot, but England should have enough up front to give him a chance to play.

Harrison has struggled this season, with tigers looking much sharper when Micky young was on the pitch.

I thought that he was better this weekend in trying to move the ball quickly, but Tigers propensity to go to ground with the ball gave Quins the opportunity to get hands and bodies over the ball and slow it down.


DaveM,

You really want Tigers to promote Ford ahead of Flood based purely on promise? After all Flood is still only 26(27?), England's incumbent and a genuine contender for a seat on the Lion's plane. Ford's chances will come this season, and already we are talking about a man who went from a very shaky start last season to producing match winning performances in an LV Final and an AP semi-final, while also playing very well in the final. Not too bad for a 19 year old.

LondonTiger I agree with you that JTH and Allen were poor.

Yappysnap I would agree with that summary too.

Quin's offloading game was really effective.

It's been mentioned already but the Leicester backline really missed Manu Tuilagi and Murphy. Especially M.Tuilagi. He's your biggest attacking threat.

Without those two Tigers rarely looked like breaking a very tough Quins defence.

I thought the ref had a good game overall.

Robson in the first minute and Mafi in the second half should have received yellow cards for cynical play.

Watching the recording back, Tigers were not as bad as I thought live. Quins were better though.

Marler has really come on leaps and bounds in my opinion.

Brown was surprisingly quiet.

Brown did his basics well but took a real nasty cut to the eye which probably made attacking tricky, he could only see out of one eye for most of the match and if you look by the middle of the second half the bandage is covering the eye completely. Is he even allowed to play on in that situation? I know we had no subs but are there rules on that kind of thing?

Marler is quality but so is Johnston and Gray (but no one ever mentions him). For me Gray is probably the most consistent Eng hooker in the league especially in the lineout and scrums. He is really good at our off loading game too.

I felt the biggest difference was between Care and Evans on the one hand and Harrison and Flood on the other. On the day there was a big gulf in class, and the direction (or rather continuous changes of direction) Quins got from their half backs meant that their ball carriers were more effective at hitting half gaps, therefore making the Quins offloading game possible.

The one plus for me in the Leicester side was Salvi, who I thought stood up manfully to the onslaught.

The better side won no question. The trick for Quins will be to ensure that they don't "do a Gloucester" and run out of steam before the end of the season. It's a certainty they'll make the play-offs, but O'Shea will need to be smart and make sure they're fresh enough come the end of the season. They've started at a rare lick.

Brown was very good. Any criticism of his performance on Saturday is odd, and probably driven by club/player loyalty.

Johnston was not so good. He had the better of Stankovish - but that is not hard sadly. He was not prominent around the pitch and struggled once Mulipola came on.

Gray was good. Youngs was more prominent in defence and attack, but Gray hit his jumpers more frequently. Youngs was not bad in this respect but Quins were getting up in front of Tigers jumpers and I am not sure Parling trusted Youngs timing to call for throws that were right at the top of the jumpers leap. thus Gray won this battle of the pretenders.

funnyExiledScot wrote:The trick for Quins will be to ensure that they don't "do a Gloucester" and run out of steam before the end of the season. It's a certainty they'll make the play-offs, but O'Shea will need to be smart and make sure they're fresh enough come the end of the season. They've started at a rare lick.

Very good point - but O'Shea has form in this regard. I thought they might "do a Gloucester" last season, but I'm now convinced that what looked like a mid-season dip in form at the start of 2012 was actually Conor using Quins' big lead in the table by not risking players with minor injuries and shifting the balance of conditioning to having the players in shape for the end of the season. Then in the week before the final he took the squad to Abu Dhabi for what looked like a jolly, but actually involved a week of 3-hour training sessions in 40 degree heat. By comparison, the 28 degrees they faced on the Twickenham pitch was a doddle.

As a result, he was able to field his strongest XV for the first and only time last season, and outpace and then outlast Leicester despite using fewer replacements. He is a very smart man.

The bigger danger for Quins this season is that, with many more players likely to be on international duty, injuries leave us very exposed. For instance, the pecking order of Quins fullbacks is Brown-Chisholm-Williams, with no other senior specialist fullbacks. As of Saturday evening, Chisholm and Williams are injured. Ross is likely to be out for a couple of months at least; Tom could be out for a couple of weeks.

LondonTiger wrote:Brown was very good. Any criticism of his performance on Saturday is odd, and probably driven by club/player loyalty.

Johnston was not so good. He had the better of Stankovish - but that is not hard sadly. He was not prominent around the pitch and struggled once Mulipola came on.

Gray was good. Youngs was more prominent in defence and attack, but Gray hit his jumpers more frequently. Youngs was not bad in this respect but Quins were getting up in front of Tigers jumpers and I am not sure Parling trusted Youngs timing to call for throws that were right at the top of the jumpers leap. thus Gray won this battle of the pretenders.

No not all. I just don't think Brown did much in attack and wasn't put under much threat defensively. I thought for him he was quiet. Doesn't mean he was bad. Just not as active as usual. Yappysnap explains why.

Brown might not make the Saracens game this weekend either, he posted a pic of his face on twitter Sunday and his eye was fecked. I don't know about recovery times but if he can't use it by this weekend then we're in trouble.

Evans/Clegg at fullback maybe?

Yappysnap what's the state of the other injured Quins players?

Evans, when he was a bit younger and faster, played Fullback for the All-Blacks. I'm sure he can play there with Clegg at 10. Or we can risk calling up OLH. Or try Botica or (I'd rather not) Monye there.

Could see Clegg, Botica and Evans in the same 15 hypothetically if JTH is out too! (we won't)

Going by the Quins board Chisholm is potentially a Fibula and potentially 6-8 weeks out if it is that.

Williams is hip-flexor and so only a few weeks at most.

No news on JTH but O'Shea was confident that it wasn't a dislocation so maybe a couple of weeks.

Fingers crossed Lowe is over his 'knock' and Brown's eye goes down.

Also it was noted that Ashton was yellow carded for dangerous play by entering a maul shoulder first, Cole's 'rucking' of Chisholm was pretty much the same as this eg straight off his feet and leading with the shoulder but the ref let play go on.

I've only watched it in real time and didn't have a problem but then looking at the Ashton scenario makes you wonder if it was legal. Especially as Cole was penalized at the ruck before for the same style of rucking.

Lastly i'll say that Chissholm can be doubly upset, as at the time of his ubber rucking he was legally challenging for the ball on Salvi who A hadn't let go of the ball and B was trying to get back to his feet.

Watching it back there's a couple of things I agree with:

1. Both of the pretenders at hooker played well.
2. Both of the starting 12s were awful. Can't remember seeing Allen play that badly since Ravenhill last season.
3. Dave Pearson had an awful game, no yellow for Mafi and allowed Quins to drop the rolling maul twice in a row when they were going over their try line. Though fair play on the forward pass to Goneva that was a good spot.
4. In the end I've got to agree with LT Tigers had the chances but blew them, Quins were far more clinical. That's why they won.

Couple of things to add/contradict:

1. Both 8s had a good game which should give Lancaster a nice headache.
2. I've not seen the supposed Quins dominance in the scrum, each side seemed to take it in turns to concede the penalty.
3. Marler will be lucky to escape a citing. Big cheap shot on Harrison.

I don't think anyone has said Quins were dominant in the scrum. Pretty even honours there, not helped by the fact that they pretty much all collapsed, Pearson had no idea who was to blame (Looked to be Stankovixh and JJ's side but whether it was deliberate, accidental, forced, JJ or Stankovich is a mystery to me) and at the end he didn't care, he just let it collapse and let both sides play it from there! Which, while dangerous, was mildly more interesting to watch

I wasn't actually convinced about the pulling down of the maul. From the replay, there wasn't anyone obviously off their feet and dragging people down. The first one, IIRC, went down because it lurched sideways and Robshaw was toppled over, but I thought it was harsh to call that a deliberate collapse since he was upright and bound in until the whole thing moved sideways. The guy is strong but not that strong!

Looked to be Stankovixh and JJ's side but whether it was deliberate, accidental, forced, JJ or Stankovich is a mystery to me

Yeah pretty much. Castro looked a bit thin though, the gluten intolerance obviously not helping.

I wasn't actually convinced about the pulling down of the maul. From the replay, there wasn't anyone obviously off their feet and dragging people down.

First one was hard to apportion blame though a couple of Quins players seemed to be up to no good. The second one was clearly Gray tackling the Tigers player at the front and dragging it down. Pearson even saw it, called it and still no card or penalty try.

yappysnap wrote:Also it was noted that Ashton was yellow carded for dangerous play by entering a maul shoulder first, Cole's 'rucking' of Chisholm was pretty much the same as this eg straight off his feet and leading with the shoulder but the ref let play go on.

The same thing occured to me. Chisholm ended up in a terrible position, but I'm not sure how he could have avoided it.

I'd assumed he'd done knee ligaments, but hopefully not. A simple fracture would be a much less serious injury. I think Chisholm is a future international - Brown like characteristics but a bit more natural pace.

LondonTiger wrote:

DaveM,

You really want Tigers to promote Ford ahead of Flood based purely on promise?

No, I'd like them to give him a chance because he's done well in the past and Flood has had two poor games in a row. Literally any other club would at least have taken Flood off after 60 minutes, but Cockerill is in charge and Ford has to 'earn his chance' e.g. wait around until he's a bit older or a player gets injured.

DaveM wrote:

yappysnap wrote:Also it was noted that Ashton was yellow carded for dangerous play by entering a maul shoulder first, Cole's 'rucking' of Chisholm was pretty much the same as this eg straight off his feet and leading with the shoulder but the ref let play go on.

The same thing occured to me. Chisholm ended up in a terrible position, but I'm not sure how he could have avoided it.

I'd assumed he'd done knee ligaments, but hopefully not. A simple fracture would be a much less serious injury. I think Chisholm is a future international - Brown like characteristics but a bit more natural pace.

Latest report is that it's not a fracture - but no word on how much ligament damage there is.

I feel for Chrisholm he's had to wait for his chances and it was a great try saving tackle. Real bad luck.

Flood has had two poor games in a row. Literally any other club would at least have taken Flood off after 60 minutes, but Cockerill is in charge and Ford has to 'earn his chance' e.g. wait around until he's a bit older or a player gets injured.

Ford came on in the first two games. Given that Quins through the kitchen sink at the ten channel and that there were several late hits on the 9 and 10 why would you risk the young lad? I would like to see Ford/Flood at 10/12 trialled in the coming weeks though.

Well because he's one of the great talents in English rugby, he's started big games before, he spent the summer bulking up (presumably for when the opposition where throwing the kitchen sink at the 10 channel), and Flood was playing poorly.

Shame about Benjamin, but hopefully Thompson will get a go so.

Btw, the A team Quins put out this evening was very strong given they played on Saturday and suffered injuries. Goes to show how relying on (and trusting) your academy can end up putting you in a very strong position.

Especially as that A team just scored 9 tries to beat LI 0-62

Fairly impressive.

[quote="LondonTiger"]Tiger's gained scrum superiority once Cole and Logo came on.


Interestingly Williams try was met with near silence. I asked the Quins supporter in front of me why, and he responded "We just don't like him at Quins" !!

From another Quins supporter that really is not true!

Interestingly Williams try was met with near silence. I asked the Quins supporter in front of me why, and he responded "We just don't like him at Quins" !!

I am a Quins supporter and that is really not the case!

There are still a few idiots around who don't appreciate Tom Williams, but everyone I know who actually watches what he does in games sees him as the first choice in his position and someone they want to stay at Quins. His reading of the game and positional play are excellent, and he has the knack of making his contributions at critical moments. Quins strive to be clinical and ruthless, and he is probably our best player at doing that.

If the crowd response was muted, it was because it wasn't immediately clear what had happened. Tom had pulled up in his run to the line because of his muscle strain, and Mr Pearson had called for the TMO, so it wasn't clear whether the try had been given. When it was, it was tempered with the knowledge that Tom would be going off injured.

I think there's a very very small minority who don't like Williams, I can safely say that most Quins fans you meet feel he's paid his dues and given a lot more back to the club since the incident.

Yea I originally thought he was doing some kind of odd swallow dive... then realized he was injured!