Exiles at Welford Road

By Inkworm
November 19 2006

Despite the inconsiderate clash of a few other fixtures, (and missing a few players) there was still a good turn out to watch a depleted Tigers take on the Exiles on what was a rather pleasant afternoon, the kick off being not far off the favoured 3pm

Anyway taking our usual spot on the terrace and everyone seemed in their usual positive mood, the programme was in usual form with Chuter proving his usual accurate yet witty reporting skills from the inside, I did however feel the spot the difference was a little easier than usual (I completed it and had time to get a beer before kick off!)

During this pre-match time we were treated to a very rare treat… Mr Hipkiss actually appeared to pass the ball on a couple of occasions, there was much debate on whether this was just poor handling or was intentional, however we would just have to wait and see. Ian was kicking the balls about and looking confident at the prospect of his first start for the team, something that in my opinion never bodes well, a good warm up for our usual number 10’s normally means a poor game, oh how little did I know today.

There seemed to be a few Irish players running around on the pitch during this time and most of them in Tigers shirts, without the Samoan clan to dominate it was down to our Irish boys to make up the team, with a few locals thrown in for good measure.

Anyway after a couple of hours of all this it was finally decided that the changing rooms were getting a little crowded with restless players and they should be let out for a run along with Mr Rowden. Tigers seemed happy as usual but the Irish players were in a rather dazzling white, reminiscent of our own away strip, mulberry being swapped for green, would they face the same curse of white that we’ve come to accept?

Following the narrow defeat the previous week it was obvious that some players wanted to compensate for this as quick as possible, so much so that in the first minute Gibbo got his hands on the ball, made a good break, offloaded to Hipkiss who went on to make some good ground, drawing in the defenders, then to the amazement of one and all he actually passed the ball!!!! I think this actually overshadowed the impressive accuracy of the pass in to the hands of Tom who saw the line and ran the first of his tries. Ian was bang on target with his first attempt at conversion, a clean confident kick that we’ve become used to with his previous appearances for the development side, he appeared to have made the step up, could he keep it up?

Who cared at this stage for the score was 7-0.

Ian carried on proving that he really wanted to keep his spot and make both Burke and Goode work hard, kicking for touch and finding it deeper than Andy seems to manage, proving he’s not just a one trick pony. In the subsequent line out the usually strong LI line out was out of shape with Tigers snatching it, however an off side meant that Tigers couldn’t capitalise on it but instead had to settle a scrum, one of the few actual Irish players on the pitch (Frank Murphy) putting in and the front row doing their usual thing and clearly gaining the upper hand, somewhere in there Alex was no doubt grinning away.

5 minutes in and the team were looking strong, pushing towards the line again, however the intervention of Rowden meant that it ended with Ian lining up once more for the posts. Again he hit the mark, showing his maturing and brining the score to 10-0.

For some reason with the sun shining the floodlights came on and became a talking point on the terrace, well there wasn’t much really happening on the pitch, the ball going up and down the pitch with both teams chasing and no one really getting the upper hand. The stalemate finally ended in the 10th minute with a Tigers turn over but Rowden spotting some infingement that certainly wasn’t visible from the Crumbie side of the pitch. It seemed to be the day for fly halves as Shane Geraghty also was making his first start for LI and had a chance to respond and open the scoring for the Exiles, maybe it was confidence or a lack of, in front of a hostile near capacity crowd at Welford Road but he took a longer time than usual to line up the ball and have a kick. However it was a clean kick, sailing over and bringing it to 10-3.

Shortly after this Rowden decided that Shane needed more practice and let him line up, this time however it sailed to the right and proved that he still needed a few more goes to find his form. The miss carried on sailing into the hands of Murphy (I think) who booted it back down and found touch not far from the half way line. This didn’t actually lead anywhere. But when Tigers finally regrouped there was a superb pass out to Tom on the wing, who nonchalantly put a hand up to pluck a high ball out of the air, a chip down the line and a straight run. Tom once again displaying his blistering pace and putting the entire Irish squad to shame. Their defence seemed to concentrate on him possibly to the exclusion to all others, however what ever plan they had to counter him wasn’t working too well and LI would maybe have been better off looking at how to stop him getting the ball in the first place instead of how to catch him once he was off.

Anyway yet again the attack came to nothing and the teams carried on battling away, time and again our pack getting the upper hand in scrum and maul, slowly moving the Exile forwards back!

Again Mr Rowden showed his skills by spotting a LI knock on and impatient to be noticed he blew up without actually letting the Tigers capitalise on the advantage. This led to another concerted drive down field with the forwards and backs all working together moving the ball all over the pitch, eventually Tom made another break but was brought down, but not before off loading to Frank, with Gibbo on his shoulder it should have been a clean pass and a straight run to the line, however Frank missed his target and it was deemed forward by Rowden anyway so back to LI.

The thin green line continued to hold and the Exiles failed to breach it despite a valiant effort, however it was time for Shane to have some more practice and despite heading dangerously close to the left upright it was the right side and meant another 3 points to LI, the score now being 13-6, with 20 minutes to go.

For a further 5 minutes Tigers retained possession and slowly moved the ball closer and closer to the line, however a turn over meant that the Exiles could have a go at scoring and play with the ball a little. Despite a rather obvious (from our point) forward pass the ref rather kindly offered Irish another chance for three points, the only obvious reason for this penalty was kindly pointed out by RichW ‘they have white shirts’ and clearly it wouldn’t have been given if the team in question was Leicester. It’s always nice to have a fair balanced view of proceedings, something that Rich can always provide. What ever the reasons Irish were back in the game almost levelling the scores at 10-9

A good kick through from Sam and another chase from Tom put Tigers in the attacking position but following a line out the Tigers were thought to be crossing as they went for the line so back to Exiles went possession, a fairly dull few minutes kept us all occupied until half time.

Half time was the usual affair of standing up, sitting down and a little silly dance to keep the Guinness sponsors happy and there were no surprise that England were once again heading for a loss in that other Leicester game somewhere in London. Who cared, Tigers were in the lead, despite throwing away a number of opportunities due to careless errors, combined with some solid defence from Irish who were being kept in the game by their fly half.

Eventually with the feeling going from extremities the players all ran out for the start of the second half. After a kick from Irish the game was back on. A little slow ball as the forwards started hogging the ball eventually led to another penalty which Ian happily slotted over, 2 minutes into the game and the score was 13-9, the boys were fired up and ready to go.

Shortly after Ian went to kick the ball deep down the field, hoping to find touch, for once he didn’t but there must be something in the food at Oval Park as he seemed to have great range and the ball kept on bouncing down the pitch, almost into the arms of Horak, turning to scoop up the ball, in fairness he didn’t take his eye off the ball. However nor did Tom who seems to never be happier than when he’s chasing after the ball, before he knew it Horak was rudely interrupted from his relaxed moment by Tom diving past him onto the ball, being greedy he’d just scored one of the luckiest tries I’ve seen at Welford Road in a long time. Another conversion from the increasingly dependable Humphreys brought the score to 20-9

Once again Tigers had the ball however it may well have been Sam who was pinned under the mass of bodies who was penalised for holding on, giving Shane a chance to respond from the 22 and the score was now 20-12.

After the restart Rowden rather kindly missed a Leicester knock on and the boys continued to exert their influence on the game. Pat deciding this was the time for some fresh blood bringing Murphy and Hickie off for Ellis and Cabbage respectively. Up to this time both had played very well, though Frank had at times been a little slow to clear the ball, nearly losing it on more than one occasion.

Despite the crowd being unusually silent on the warm November afternoon the teams carried on, Harry looking sharper than in previous games, getting the ball out quicker and seeming to be more confident in his play. Clearly something wasn’t quiet right as it was now time for Scotland’s 1000th cap to join the battle, with Jim replacing Louis Deacon, who had until this time played very well and had a good round of applause for his efforts.

Clearly the fresh members had something to bring as the team found themselves once more driving the ball slowly forward for the line and going between the forwards and the backs, at one point it looked like Sam was lining up for a drop goal attempt in front of the posts and though it was likely he’d have got the 3 points, for some reason he decided not to and kept the ball in play with an eye on 5 points. An off side from Irish put a stop to this attack and Leicester only came away with 3 points, Ian continuing with his 100% record for the afternoon. 23-12

In an unlikely error Magne put the ball straight into the arms of Harry, despite looking promising it was a typical case of Tigers failing to finish off some excellent play. At this time Crane was replaced by Luke. Magne and Kennedy were brought off, Armitage and Hudson taking their place, whilst this was taking place Geraghty was quietly securing another 3 points, making it now 23-15

It had been too long without a Leicester Murphy on the pitch and the rules do say that we need a Murphy on the pitch for at least 75% of game time so it was rectified by bringing off Varndell who’d had way to much fun already and sticking Johne on instead, Holford was also replaced by Young, who then went on to acquit himself admirably. Despite all this a penalty meant the score was now 23-18, Irish were brining themselves back into the game, a little like the rumour that was going around about England scoring a few points, however knowing the source of this information I assumed that was just another wind up!

Finally 33 minutes into the second half the crowd finally woke up and starting making some noise, once they’d realised that we could potentially lose the game unless something was done, it did look unlikely as our defence had continued to be solid throughout the afternoon and Irish failing to break it, only errors up til now keeping them in the game. This time it was the turn of the Irish to make a mistake and for a change a decision went in our favour, Rowden finally noticing an off side which gave Ian a chance to take the game away from Irish and making it 26-18

After a couple more substitutions for the teams, Thorpe replacing McCullen and our own Cornwell taking over from an injured Vesty , Rowden clearly was getting cold and called it a day, yet another home win for Leicester. Then it was confirmed, England had actually won a game, Robinson would keep his job for another week and some of the Leicester boys had done good, how good I don’t know and to be honest I don’t care, I’d seen what I wanted a win at Welford Road.

All in all it was a good performance from an under strength team, and whilst there were errors in places and the finishing could have been better it was exactly what I suspect Pat wanted, 4 points during the international season.

The Irish team looked strong through out the game and kept up the pressure, ok so our opinion of off side might vary from Catt but that’s what wearing a Leicester shirt does, as the game progressed Leicester slowly seemed to gain the upper hand and dominated, especially in the forwards. The biggest problem I would currently say Irish have is the lack or real pace players that can keep up with the likes of Tom and even Leon, the line outs weren’t as strong as they used to be and as for the try Horak gave us... well it’s a classic. Geraghty despite appearing to be on the bench in the programme kept Irish in the game until near the end and despite one miss shows real promise and really stood out.

Many of the Leicester players did themselves proud, Tom featuring heavily in this report as he seemed to be all over the pitch and happy there, Alex seemed to motivate the forwards and was ready wade in if there was a problem, Sam was confident and controlling the game, good tackles from Lloyd and even Dan passing the ball. I would have to agree with the official choice of Ian Humphreys though, he stepped up and played just as he has in all the other games I’ve seen him in, despite the increase in intensity and it being Premiership game he kept a cool head, in the past when he’s been on and there’s been a mistake his confidence seems to have taken a little knock, however that was missing today and when it didn’t go quite right he seemed to learn from his mistakes, get on and try something else, I personally think he put both Goode and Burke to shame with his performance and I for one would like to see him start a little more often, for once we are spoilt for choice at fly half and he’s set the standard.

By this time it was a little chilly and after nearly 4 hours on the terrace it was time to head off to the pub for some warming ales.