Preview: Leicester Tigers vs Leeds Carnegie
Twiggy starts at 12
By Peter Creek
February 29 2008
Leeds Carnegie travels to Leicester this weekend to finish a run of three exceedingly tough fixtures against teams from the upper echelon of the Guinness Premiership. The team has got nothing from the first two of these fixtures and Leicester fans will see no reason for that to change at Welford Road. Leeds fans , on the other hand, are wondering where the next points are coming from.
Judging from the way that both Bath and Sale dealt with the Carnegies then points will not be forthcoming at the expense of the Tigers.
Last week Leeds were slow out of the starting blocks and were chasing the game from the point when Ollie Barkley kicked his first goal. Bath were a very strong side physically and the Carnegies never achieved better than parity when it came to the muscular stuff. Indeed the team looked a bit perplexed by the speed and purpose of the Bath players, particularly their forwards, who also displayed a quickness of hand and feet not often seen at Headingley Carnegie. Once again there were some puzzling selections in the Leeds team. Why did Di Bernado start on the bench? If Hooper was fit why did he not start? We also witnessed “substitution by rote” which seems to have become a ritual for the management team.
Leicester has been having a poor time recently with one or two shaky performances. If you think I am about to suggest that they are ripe for the taking then you are very much mistaken. They fielded a weakened side at HC earlier in the season and still managed to secure a comfortable victory. Jordan Crane has been bigging this fixture up all week, seeing Leeds as a tough obstacle to be overcome. He is probably just trying to ensure that the Tigers do not go into this game with too much complacency. The Carnegies will not be complacent. Indeed the team has always put one hundred percent effort into every game with scant reward. To expect them to get anything pointswise out of this fixture is being far too optimistic. The lads will, hopefully, learn from the experience and it may set them in a better frame of mind for the subsequent forthcoming fixtures which are far more do-able than trying to turn over the Tigers on their own patch.
Stuart Lancaster will have more players available this weekend so his selection of the team will be made more difficult. If Biggs is fit he will play. Hooper should start. Blackett’s defensive qualities will be needed. Welford Road will be full. The home fans expectations will be for five points. Saturday would be a good day for Lanny’s boys to put down a marker for the rest of the season.
[ED: Team announced: 15 Hinton, 14 Holtby, 13 Hepworht, 12 Tuilagi, 11 Satala, 10 Di Barnado, 9 Bedford (c), 8 Balding, 7 Fourie, 6 Myall, 5 Bouza, 4 Lund, 3 Pa'lamo, 2 Rawlinson, 1 McDonald. Subs: 16 Hopcroft, 17 Ma'asi, 18 Paul, 19 Lock, 20 Brookes, 21 Blackett, 22 Vickerman]
The Worcester result away to Sale makes our position even more stark...
But I shall travel to the game on the coach alongside fellow supporters with Hope - and pray she brings her sisters Faith and Charity with her!
looking forward to the Premiership next Season already...!
After the last 2 weeks, Tigers have nothing to be complacent about either so let's hope for a really hard game with both sides giving their all and playing well.