Aviva Semi 2: Bath Rugby v Leicester Tigers, 23 May

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Bath Rugby v Leicester Tigers
Saturday 23 May 2015
KO: 17:00
The Recreation Ground

Live on BT Sport
Referee: JP Doyle (97th Premiership game).
Assistant Referees: Paul Dix and Ashley Rowden.
TMO: Graham Hughes.

A. Head to Head - Aggregate

56 Played 56
19 Wins 32
32 Losses 19
5 Draws 5
91 Tries 98
58 Conversions 62
146 Penalties 171
6 Drop Goals 13
1,027 Points 1,166
26 Avg. Age 28

B. Head to Head - This Season

Sat 20th Sep 14: Bath Rugby 45 - 0 Leicester Tigers

Sun 4th Jan 15: Leicester Tigers 17 - 8 Bath Rugby

C. Run-In

Bath Rugby

16/05/15: Bath 50 - 30 Gloucester

08/05/15: Quins 26 - 27 Bath

24/04/15: Bath 43 - 18 L Irish

Leicester Tigers

16/05/15: Tigers 22 - 14 Saints

09/05/15: Wasps 21 - 26 Tigers

25/04/15: Tigers 38 - 17 L Welsh

D. Teams

Bath Rugby

15 Anthony Watson
14 Semesa Rokoduguni
13 Jonathan Joseph
12 Kyle Eastmond
11 Matt Banahan
10 George Ford
09 Peter Stringer

01 Paul James
02 Ross Batty
03 David Wilson
04 Stuart Hooper (c)
05 Dave Attwood
06 Sam Burgess
07 Francois Louw
08 Leroy Houston

16 Rob Webber
17 Nick Auterac
18 Henry Thomas
19 Dominic Day
20 Matt Garvey
21 Carl Fearns
22 Chris Cook
23 Ollie Devoto

Leicester Tigers

15 Niall Morris
14 Adam Thompstone
13 Mathew Tait
12 Christian Loamanu
11 Vereniki Goneva
10 Freddie Burns

09 Ben Youngs (c)
01 Marcos Ayerza
02 Tom Youngs
03 Dan Cole
04 Brad Thorn
05 Graham Kitchener
06 Ed Slater
07 Julian Salvi
08 Jordan Crane

16 Neil Briggs
17 Michele Rizzo
18 Fraser Balmain
19 Sebastian De Chaves
20 Jamie Gibson
21 Sam Harrison
22 Tommy Bell
23 George Catchpole

formerly known as Sam wrote:Not had a chance to watch the game yet but it looks like Bath's attack was streets ahead of ours again and they put us to the sword. Congrats to the Bath boys and good luck in the final.

i reckon close to 50% of the game was played in the Bath 22 - but we had no real ideas as to how we would get over the whitewash.

Leicester are trying to play the rugby from bygone era. I assume that Mauger is being brought in to effectively replace Cockerill who seems to be stuck in a time warp.

Nope, he was brought in to replace the sacked Paul Burke and the departed Matt O'Connor, Cockerill's responsibilities are nothing to do with the backs or general attacking structure.

Cockerill is the first to admit back play is not his strength so needs someone to complement that bit,O'Connor seemed to Burke didn't & rather than get anyone Tigers rather waited to get their prefered option just hope Mauger & Murphy can click like the last time.. As forwards are more his department he seems to be doing a fair job

I still think Cockerill did a fantastic job this season considering the rash if injuries at the club. In the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter who the attack coach is if there are no healthy bodies to play the positions.

doctor_grey wrote:I still think Cockerill did a fantastic job this season considering the rash if injuries at the club.  In the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter who the attack coach is if there are no healthy bodies to play the positions.  

I his post match interview Cockerill whilst gracious in defeat was bemoaning the injury list. The thing that struck me was that the list of injured backs was essentially more of what Leicester had yesterday. He listed players who would add more brawn but no additional guille. For example he could bring in Tuilagi and Allen but no one with the skill of Eastmond or Joseph.

The problem is exemplified by the most skillful Leicester back on display yesterday by a big margin being Tait who Leicester are letting go.

Exiledinborders wrote:
The problem is exemplified by the most skillful Leicester back on display yesterday by a big margin being Tait who Leicester are letting go.  

Not by choice. When Lancaster told Tait he stood no chance of ever playing for England he decided the time was right to try something new.

LondonTiger wrote:...When Lancaster told Tait he stood no chance of ever playing for England...

That doesn't seem like the kind of thing Lancaster would say. He is usually honest with players - and Tait is way down his full-back pecking order - but he hasn't closed the door on anyone else.

Interesting that a Bath vs Saracens final will likely have four largely out-of-favour wingers: Strettle, Ashton, Rokoduguni and Banahan. The Saracens pair are back on the fringes but the Bath pair are out in the cold.

There'll be a few good match-ups in the backs (selection permitting)

Ford vs Farrell
Eastmond vs Barritt
Watson vs Goode

LondonTiger wrote:

Exiledinborders wrote:
The problem is exemplified by the most skillful Leicester back on display yesterday by a big margin being Tait who Leicester are letting go.  

Not by choice. When Lancaster told Tait he stood no chance of ever playing for England he decided the time was right to try something new.

That may be so but did Tigers make keeping him a priority?

My main point is that after the game Cockerill was looking for a better battering ram when Bath had shown the value of a good locksmith.

Allen offers a lot In terms of defensive structure and Manu offers the explosive impetus we've been missing all season. They are bus losses. They are the players that can run the midfield on their own.

Cockers, has done well this season. For us to finish third and beat Toulon given how bad we've been playing is a sign of success.

Exiledinborders wrote:Leicester are trying to play the rugby from bygone era. I assume that Mauger is being brought in to effectively replace Cockerill who seems to be stuck in a time warp.

This season maybe, but recent seasons they have been top try scorers at the end of the season.

I don't think the injuries have helped at all and considering how poor we have been playing and how many people have written us off we still achieved as much as say Northampton did this year - people seem to forget this

Exiledinborders wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

Exiledinborders wrote:
The problem is exemplified by the most skillful Leicester back on display yesterday by a big margin being Tait who Leicester are letting go.  

Not by choice. When Lancaster told Tait he stood no chance of ever playing for England he decided the time was right to try something new.

That may be so but did Tigers make keeping him a priority?

My main point is that after the game Cockerill was looking for a better battering ram when Bath had shown the value of a good locksmith.

I'd argue that both the battering ram and the locksmith can be effective approaches to opening a door

Ideally one of each. Bath have no issue employing battering rams out on the wings.

I think Leicester's problem, injuries not withstanding, is that have got relatively less competitive over the last few years (maybe because the other teams have improved?).  From dominating they have slowly declined.  

They are still the best supported club in England, but the backs seem not to shine much these days.  

Other issues include the pitch which always seems like a quagmire, which may be good for forward domination but is not so good for developing backs or playing on hard pitches.

They also seem to have good players drift away and become better elsewhere (Ford is the obvious candidate).

I am not trying to be derogatory but it may mean a more fundamental change is needed.  However even as a Bath fan, I hope they stick to their traditions.

MOC was much maligned when he was at the club for failing to develop and retain the players our academy produced notably Ford, Twelvetrees and Lewington. Hopefully that element is now improving.

The pitch issues stem from the club's tendency to host gigs over the summer. It's good for the bank balance but with the new clubhouse stand being built that won't happen this season.

Mauger and Murphy helped organise the attacking structure last time we presented a real force back in 2009. Hoping for a repeat next season.

I think its a testament to Cockers and the Tigers pack that he's built that they got into the playoffs this season!

Harlequins and Tigers have had very similar seasons, losing important senior players, bringing in players that may not be good enough. Playing tactics that don't work against the better sides out there and not to mention lots of bad luck with injuries.

Tigers still made the play offs. Harlequins finished 8th.

Crack open the champers then yappysnap

lostinwales wrote:

Exiledinborders wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

Exiledinborders wrote:
The problem is exemplified by the most skillful Leicester back on display yesterday by a big margin being Tait who Leicester are letting go.  

Not by choice. When Lancaster told Tait he stood no chance of ever playing for England he decided the time was right to try something new.

That may be so but did Tigers make keeping him a priority?

My main point is that after the game Cockerill was looking for a better battering ram when Bath had shown the value of a good locksmith.

I'd argue that both the battering ram and the locksmith can be effective approaches to opening a door

The Best teams have a bit of both. Cockerill seems ideologically tied to the battering ram approach. I do think it is an approach that increasingly does not work against modern defences.

I think it's a case of there being little attacking structure in the back line. A bit of the battering ram ties in the opposition defence but then we struggle to unleash the backs with any real cutting edge past the off the cuff imagination of the half backs. Which leads to more battering a more often than we'd like and eventually good teams turn us over.

Cockers has said we have to improve and that he knows nothing about backs play so I'm hopeful Mauger will do the job. He was influential in the development of our attack when we nearly did the treble in 2009.

TightHEAD wrote:Crack open the champers then yappysnap

Bath could afford Ito buy it, they don't need to worry about the salary cap

They can't be just better eh Nathan

Sgt_Pooly wrote:They can't be just better eh Nathan

Bath were he better team on the day and over the course of the season. The main difference was the creativity of Bath's backs. Cockerill does annoy me sometimes - his opening statement after the match was 'We have no complaints about the score". He then went on to criticise the officiating which he alluded gave Bath an advantage. Actually, he had a point. How you get two yellow cards on your own try line and not concede a penalty try is rather baffling.... still, there's always next year.

However, lets not mess about here, Bath are almost certainly breaching the salary cap, and by some accounts, in a big way. Whether that made a difference or not I don't know.

Are they breaching it in a "big way" or does it just seem that way because they've got a practically fully for squad whilst we're still missing about a dozen. Not that that's an excuse but if you were to look at the 23 man squads overall Bath's looked stronger especially on the bench.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:They can't be just better eh Nathan

Nope!

Seriously though, Bath play a brand of rugby that is great to watch so i don't mind them being in the final. In fact i will be cheering them on to win it.

Still won't stop me from having a few comments about breaking the salary cap