Leicester Tigers v London Welsh Preview

By Mark W-J
February 5 2013

Round fourteen of the Aviva Premiership season is a repeat of the opening weekend’s fixtures, which pit London Welsh against the might of the Leicester Tigers. Despite not having won the Premiership title since 2009-10, the Tigers are recognised as the biggest club in English rugby, with nine league titles, seven domestic cups, and two Heineken Cups to their name, and they are striving to reach the Premiership play-off final for an incredible ninth consecutive season.

If there is such thing as a good time to play Leicester, then the middle of an international window is apparently it. Last weekend five Tigers players (Ben & Tom Youngs, Dan Cole, Geoff Parling and Toby Flood) represented England at Twickenham, with Manu Tuilagi missing out through injury, while a further five (George Ford, Graham Kitchener, Jordan Crane, Kieran Brookes and Ed Slater) appeared for the Saxons at Newcastle. And that ignores the contribution of tighthead Martin Castrogiovanni, who scored Italy’s second try in their fantastic win over France in Rome on Sunday. Yet even with so many players unavailable, the Tigers were still able to field a team including Mathew Tait, Scott Hamilton, Matt Cornwell, Dan Bowden, George Chuter, Brett Deacon, Richard Thorpe and Thomas Waldron in their LV=Cup tie at Parc y Scarlets, with Geordan Murphy on the bench and the likes of Adam Thompstone, Anthony Allen, Niall Morris, Marcos Ayerza, Louis Deacon, Tom Croft and Julian Salvi all resting at home with a roast dinner and the Sunday papers. Rival supporters often suggest that a squad so big, so full of star names, cannot possibly meet the salary cap imposed by Premier Rugby. Surely, they say, these players must be attracted by big wages rather than the prospect of sitting on the bench or up in the impressive stands at Welford Road.

But Leicester are the rugby equivalent of Manchester United: when players sign for the club they know that they are going to be fighting for silverware on all fronts, and have a significantly better chance of winning medals at Welford Road than at any other club in the country. Yet they also know that they will have to fight to earn a place in the starting line-up, and to work even harder to retain the shirt. They probably recognise that their opponent in training will be tougher than any opponent they could face on the Saturday afternoon, and it’s this strength that breeds further success. How us Celts laughed when England picked a tighthead who wasn’t even the first choice at his club. Yet today that player is - in most people’s eyes - the favourite to wear the No.3 shirt for the Lions in Australia this summer, having overcome the challenge of the legendary Castro just to become the best player in his position at his club.

Anthony Allen - As much an ever-present
as it's possible to be in a Tigers shirt!

As you would expect, the size of the squad allows for greater player rotation, ensuring that key players are rested and kept fresh for the business end of the season. The Tigers have used 43 players in 13 rounds of Premiership rugby, 37 of whom have started at least one game, whereas of the 41 players who have represented Welsh nineteen have made fewer than three starts and eight have yet to feature in the starting line-up. While Franck Montanella and Jon Mills are among the 16 players who have started every one of their club’s Premiership games this season, and a further seven London Welshmen have made at least 10 starts, only two Leicester players - Julian Salvi and Anthony Allen - have reached double figures.

After thirteen rounds of the Premiership season, Leicester sit in third place on 43 points, one behind Saracens with Harlequins a further two ahead. The London clubs have beaten the Tigers in the last two Premiership finals, and all three teams have qualified for the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup, which take place on the first weekend of April. The Tigers have won nine and drawn one in the league, with a solitary home defeat to Quins (9-22) in September. Their 26 tries have only been bettered by Quins (32), Exeter (30) and Wasps (29) and although they are only one of two clubs who have not scored a try through the front row, they have been awarded an incredible six penalty tries. They have conceded only 14 tries, second only to Saracens’ miserly ten, but just two of them to forwards - Ben White of Exeter and Gloucester’s Akapusi Qera. Toby Flood is their top scorer, with 81 points from eight appearances, while Gordon Ross is fifth in the charts, behind Nick Evans, Freddie Burns, Andy Goode and Charlie Hodgson, with 124 points at an average of 10.33 per game. Tigers’ top try scorer is winger Adam Thompstone, who joined from London Irish in the summer. He’s crossed four times, including a hat-trick on his first start against the Chiefs in September, which puts him joint-fourth (with six other players) overall, behind Wasps’ former Tiger Tom Varndell (ten), his team-mate Christian Wade (six) and Worcester’s David Lemi (five). Saturday’s referee is Tim Wigglesworth, officiating in his 59^th Premiership game and his ninth of the current campaign. He was the man in the middle when we entertained Wasps over Christmas, but was also in charge for Leicester’s game with Bath at Welford Road in early December, in which he dismissed Tigers’ Brett Deacon and Bath’s Francois Louw and Matt Banahan, as well as issuing two further yellow cards to the visitors. He can expect a traditional warm East Midlands welcome, then…

Top try scorer Adam Thompstone
completing his hat-trick against Exeter

Our last victory over the Tigers came on 19^th September 1987 when we won 9-6 at Welford Road - ironically, the season in which league rugby was introduced in England. We were placed in Courage League Two, but we managed to beat the team who were to be crowned Champions seven months later. Furthermore, the Tigers were unbeaten at home in the league that season, suffering a solitary loss at Orrell. In those days league fixtures were arranged by the fixture secretaries of the clubs, rather than played on fixed weekends throughout the season, and while teams earned four points for a win and two for a draw as they do today there was also a point to be earned for losing, to encourage teams to fulfil the fixtures. Leicester’s game with Gloucester didn’t take place, so they won the title on points difference from Wasps despite the London club having played one game more. The first meeting of our clubs took place on 18^th October 1902 at Welford Road in front of over 11,000 spectators, with the return fixture taking place at Queens’ Club on 5^th January 1903. Our 11-3 win the following season, with tries from Hop Maddocks, Jack Williams and C.F. Rowlands, remains our biggest margin of victory at Welford Road. Our last visit was back in 1995-96, when we’d just escaped from National Five South and the Tigers were - naturally - the reigning champions, and we were soundly beaten, 63-19, while our only competitive meeting prior to this season had been a third round Pilkington Cup tie at Leicester in January 1990, the year we were relegated to National Four South, which we lost 43-3.

Tigers' Italian Prop Martin Castrogiovanni
Try scorer against France in opening round of Six Nations

Welsh go into Saturday’s game with a record of just one win - at home to Calvalieri Prato - in our last eight outings, and having won just once on our travels in the Premiership, at Sale in round three. The Sharks will be our visitors next week for what could be a pivotal game in our season, but you sense that Lyn isn’t yet looking that far ahead. The fans have been concerned by his insistence on including frontline players in the recent Amlin and LV Cup ties, despite the fact that the club has clearly placed very little importance on those competitions, but it is to be hoped that this has ensured that they have retained the sharpness which will be necessary to overcome the hurdles that confront us in the coming weeks. Of course nobody expects us to win at Leicester, but we were supposed to have been cast adrift at the foot of the table by Christmas. And as Italy - featuring Leicester’s Martin Castrogiovanni and their very own Jon Mills in Sergio Parisse - proved last weekend, the little ‘uns will always have their day.

Leicester Tigers v London Welsh Preview

Posted by: The Dragons' Den (IP Logged)

Date: 06/02/2013 00:06

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