Boing! Here comes Tigger!
By Tightheed (01/04/04)
April 2 2004
This weekend Newcastle Falcons take on Leicester Tigers (3pm KO Sunday) in what would be called a "6 pointer" in football, however the match is overshadowed by the sad news that Soa Otavaka (pictured) passed away earlier this week.
Sometimes rugby just does not seem that important & our thoughts go out to Soa’s family and friends.
Wildcard Place At Stake
Both sides need the win to help secure a wildcard place for next seasons Heineken Cup.
Newcastle charged by a newly confident Dave Walder return to action after a pretty disappointing result last week when we where "frustrated" by the referee and Leeds stole two points from us. (Don’t get me on to the subject of David Rose or this preview will be longer than one on the Tigers board.) Sunday needs a top drawer performance to turn over a Leicester side kick-started by Johnson and Back.
The Falcons pack will need to play with power aggression and pace as we all know they can and I predict that a recall for Archer and Grimes in the 2nd row and Hurter in the front row will be needed to try and negate the Tiggers pack. Key battle area will be the back rows with Britz Vyvyan (why Sarries Huge??) and Dunbar needing to step up to the plate and give us 3 five star performances.
If the forwards can win enough ball then the interesting battle for me will be at half back where Hall and Dave will be against Harry Ellis and Andy Goode. Last time Goode played here for Sarries he had a stormer but I remember him not being able to kick a thing when he last played in a Tiggers shirt at KP. P>
The back three for me should be Stevo Tom and Lilley as Joe Shaw runs to hot and cold to keep his starting place, and we will need these three on form to keep the likes of Austin Healey quiet.
The whole side needs to improve defensively after letting the Leeds side run through them and we hope for a stronger referee to prevent the tiggers “slowing” the ball down too much. My prediction is for a close game Falcons 4 points Tigers 1 bonus point.
All I can hope for is that the 8000+ crowd get an entertaining game and everyone digs deep and donates to the Soa memorial charity (and that David Rose is reffing somewhere else).
Onwards and upwards….Tightheed
Team starting line-ups
Leicester Tigers
15 Andy Goode, 14 Geordan Murphy, 13 Glenn Gelderbloom, 12 Daryl Gibson, 11 Austin Healey, 10 Jaco van der Westhuyzen, 9 Harry Ellis, 1 Graham Rowntree, 2 Dorian West, 3 Julian White, 4 Martin Johnson (captain), 5 Louis Deacon, 6 Martin Corry, 7 Neil Back, 8 Henry Tuilagi
Replacements (from):
Michael Holford, Jim Richards, George Chuter, Darren Morris, Ben Kay, Will Johnson, Freddie Tuilagi, Dan Hipkiss, John Holtby, Steve Booth
Newcastle Falcons
1 Ian Peel, 2 Nick Makin, 3 Marius Hurter, 4 Garath Archer, 5 Stuart Grimes, 6 Jon Dunbar, 7 Warren Britz, 8 Hugh Vyvyan (Captain), 9 Hall Charlton, 10 Dave Walder, 11 Michael Stephenson, 12 Mark Mayerhofler, 13 Jamie Noon, 14 Tom May, 15 Joe Shaw
No information regarding replacements.
Officials
Referee: Steve Davey
Touch judges: Brian Campsall, Stuart Terheege
Assessor: Colin High