Are you listening, Leicester Tigers?

By Whaley Shark
March 1 2014

Are you listening, Leicester Tigers? The snapping of Sharky teeth behind the tip of your tail ought to be pretty audible by now, with our second away win in a row taking us to sixth in the table this evening.

 

OK, we’re probably only going to be close behind you for a day or so, because I am not going to bet my pension on you losing away at Falcons tomorrow afternoon but, just over a year on from the one point win away to London Welsh which probably did more than anything else to settle last season, I do find it hard to believe that we are comfortably in mid table, with a decent points gap to the six teams below us.

Saints and Sarries are clearly a level above all the other teams in the AP and, being honest, we are a bit off the pace in the mini-league of forty-something point sides below the table-toppers, so I think we are unlikely to make the top four. However, our Premiership form has been good, perhaps better than I realised.

We have won four from five in the AP since New Year, and you have to go all the way back to our defeat at Quins in October to find the last AP game where we failed to pick up at least one league point. But now we’re at the business end of the season, with only six games to go, but we have no reason to fear anyone.

Saints at home are first up, in three weeks’ time, and they’re going to be tough. Then we have Bath away and Quins at home, both teams a little off the boil, so I fancy our chances with those. Exeter away may be one of our bogey fixtures but, if we can keep the good run going, then why not win down there? Then it would be plain sailing, with just a spluttering Tigers up in Salford and the season’s finale away at Irish.

So, if we keep form and confidence high, then there’s every prospect of a really strong finish to the campaign. All the games are potentially winnable, though Saints is probably the hardest. Mind you, we get a second go at them just ten days after the AP fixture, in the Amlin Quarter Final, and I’d be disappointed if we didn't win one of those matches. As regards the AP though, and given how tricky some of the games are, I think three wins from our six games would be reasonable, I’d be pleased with four, and delighted with any more than that.