Exeter v Tigers LV Preview

By ChrisC
January 25 2011

UnLoVed and Unwanted - By ChrisC So it’s back, rather like a distant relative who keeps turning up with his kids who, with their felt tip pens, despoil the faux leather sofa for which you have yet to make even the first payment. The piccalilli coloured covering, that seemed so avant garde in the DFS showroom and in the TV advert, with all those impossibly attractive young people and well behaved children sitting so prettily, now doesn’t seem such a good idea. What were you thinking? Maybe it would have been better to get Plumb’s in to do a nifty recovering job, in a suitably dark colour, on the old one instead.

The LV Cup is similarly unwelcome to many, this unruly child created by the rugby shopkeepers who are more interested, well actually only interested, in extracting as much money from the customers’ pockets as possible without having their collar felt by Mr Plod rather than providing a good rugby product.

See it’s all about customers, products, footfall, the “experience”, than clubs, players and supporters, we’re all economic units nowadays.

When the Anglo Welsh travesty started it was seen as another wizard wheeze (I did so love Billy Bunter!) to push the clubs’ fingers further down into the supporters’ pockets so that any further encroachment would surely see it become a question of sexual rather than financial assault.

Those wily coyotes, the rugby supporters, spotted this and very astutely voted with their feet at the prospect of this larceny and didn’t turn up for the latest confection – oops!!

Here’s a better plan then, thought the clubs; let’s “give” the Anglo Welsh matches for “free” as part of the season ticket, that way an increase in season ticket prices isn’t an increase at all is it? It becomes “better value” for the great unwashed, of course the fact that the gift is unsolicited and largely unwanted is neither here nor there.

The added incentive for this sleight of hand is that because season ticket holders are often counted as present even when they, in reality, are elsewhere doing something more edifying such as cleaning ink off the sofa.

So there you go – money’s in the bank, notional attendance numbers go up, the sponsors fall, for a while anyway, for the rugby equivalent of the “King’s New Clothes”, everyone’s a winner. Well obviously not the customers, or the players, or the sport, or the sponsors but the clubs are in clover and that, after all, is all that matters isn’t it?

So the Anglo Welsh staggers on with its latest sponsor; the Liverpool Victoria Assurance Company. I remember the “insurance man” coming to the door of my parent’s London home in the 1950s, in our case he came from the Liverpool Victoria, he wore a belted gabardine raincoat, a trilby hat and took the weekly tithe every Thursday evening without fail, noting the latest investment in the family’s post war future in our insurance book. After all if we paid a couple of pence a week the future was bright and secure for the aspirant post war Working Class wasn’t it, especially with that nice Mr Bevan’s new Welfare State to look after us gratis from cradle to grave? How’s that all going by the way?

As I’ve said before the rugby knock out cup, of which the LV= purports to be the heir, was a wonderful institution but of course had to be “modernised” so the Anglo Welsh appeared and with it the new cadre of sponsors upon which our sport and so many others rely. The days of John Players tobacco, Courage and Tetleys beer, all products much enjoyed by the target audience and also, somewhat prosaically, Pilkington Glass were a sponsor for a while – I wonder why?

Anyway the beer and fags have been replaced by energy and insurance companies, all despised in roughly equal measure by the public at large but seemingly appropriate bedfellows for the rugby clubs.

Personally my decision on whether to smoke or not was influenced by excursions behind the bike sheds at school where I preferred to concentrate on the delights of the distaff side of the pupil body, and I do mean body in its widest and most delightful sense, rather than smoking, which I felt to be an unpleasant, smelly and expensive pastime and there was also a lad who always smelt of stale fags and puffed and blew whenever he was obliged to play rugby as opposing cannon fodder for the First XV practice and which invariably meant that he was a slow and an easy mark for the rest of us young thugs flexing our pubescent muscles and turning up the testosterone in readiness for the coming Saturday’s fixture.

Now of the pleasure providers just Heineken remains, who’s brew is palatable to me only in the company of a flaxen haired maiden by the banks of the Zuider Zee, having survived the Health Police’s best attempts and even the Dutch brewers have had their famous logo supplanted by the single letter H due to the restrictions on advertising alcohol, in France of all places.

My theory is that the healthy lifestyle that our self appointed betters want us to follow does not prolong life it just makes it seem that way as we drift into a penurious, drooling old age.

The LV then, to my Luddite mind, is the product of avarice and the political imperative to provide inclusivity for the Welsh Provinces, who, no matter how much money they spend, rarely achieve much. This objective is sought together with its equally derided sibling; the British and Irish Cup so quite why the Isle of Man has escaped I don’t know – it’s a great place to go, they play rugby and it’s still like a real nation. Low tax, few speed limits, free parking (other than in Douglas), no speed cameras, real national pride and a blessed absence of the nanny state that has seemingly given the population of the mainland a massive dose of Ritalin and this all coupled with a beautiful landscape and nice people, sounds idyllic doesn’t it? However given all this leeway don’t fall foul of the judiciary as they’re unforgiving and travel to and from the island is very expensive, it rains a lot and is relentlessly windy, so perfect for rugby.

The LV’s arcane cross pool structure is presumably designed to convince us how clever the organisers are whereas disinterest in the whole misconceived competition is now breathtaking in its universality. Wasps and Quins even going to Abu Dhabi to try and kindle some interest – those Arabs won’t know what’s happening as being used to Sevens it’ll seem like the slo–mo button’s been periodically pressed. Cue the IRB’s next modernisation to attract a “new” audience that coincidentally has squillions of petrodollars to spend, after all why should horse racing, FIFA and the soccer Premiership get it all?

Tigers clearly decided at the outset that this competition, in 2010/11, was an unwelcome distraction best left to the reserves while maximum concentration was afforded the twin demands of the European Cup and Premiership, especially coinciding, as it did, with the club’s worst injury crisis for many a year and the memory that in Paddy Howard’s last season, when the then disarmingly simple, EDF Cup was won by Tigers together with the Premiership and End of Season Knock Out Cup the effort of competing on yet another front proved too much and the Heineken Cup was lost to Wasps as the exhausted Tigers staggered into Twickenham once again.

It’s perhaps worth comparing the Tigers’ squad that met Bath in the LV in January 2010 with that which met Ospreys in the last round.

LV= Cup Squad Versus Bath - January 2010

15 Lucas Amorosino, 14 Alesana Tuilagi, 13 Billy Twelvetrees, 12 Aaron Mauger (c), 11 Matt Smith, 10 Sam Vesty, 9 Harry Ellis, 8 Brett Deacon, 7 Ben Woods, 6 Ben Pienaar, 5 Ben Kay, 4 Calum Green, 3 Julian White, 2 Joe Duffey, 1 Boris Stankovich.
Replacements: 16 Tom Youngs, 17 Robbie Harris, 18 Ryan Bower, 19 Dan Hemingway, 20 Tom Armes, 21 James Grindal, 22 Andy Forsyth, 23 Johne Murphy.

LV= Cup Squad Versus Ospreys – November 2010

15 Alex Lewington, 14 Lee Robinson, 13 Dan Hipkiss, 12 Andy Forsyth, 11 Will Hurrell, 10 George Ford, 9 Jason Spice, 8 Ben Pienaar (c), 7 Tom Armes, 6 Dan Hemingway, 5 Ben Gulliver, 4 Calum Green, 3 Ryan Bower, 2 Rob Hawkins, 1 Camilo Parilli-Ocampo.
Replacements: 16 Joe Duffey, 17 Fraser Balmain, 18 Peter Bucknall, 19 Matt Everard, 20 Steve Mafi, 21 Sam Harrison, 22 Stephen Macaulay, 23 Rory Lynn.

I accept that in some constituencies the LV is welcome, as to ginger things up a bit winning the pot gets entry into the Heineken Cup which would otherwise be a dream for some clubs were they to have to achieve that goal by a meritorious top six finish in the league.

The next outing for Tigers is down at Sandy Park where Exeter, over in Pool D, are nicely placed in second behind Quins who are donning their thawbs for a trip to the Emirates.

Exeter are taking this competition seriously as will be seen by comparing their last team in the competition, that which drew in Cardiff having been ahead, with that which played Tigers a couple of weeks ago.

Against Cardiff 12th November 2010

15 Luke Arscott, 14 Nic Sestaret, 13 Phil Dollman, 12 Jason Shoemark, 11 Mark Foster, 10 Ryan Davis, 9 Hayden Thomas, 8 Richard Baxter, 7 Andy Miller, 6 Tom Johnson, 5 James Hanks, 4 Tom Hayes (c), 3 Hoani Tui, 2 Simon Alcott, 1 Brett Sturgess.

Against Tigers 2nd January 2011

15 Luke Arscott, 14 Nic Sestaret, 13 Jason Shoemark, 12 Sireli Naqelevuki, 11 Mark Foster, 10 Ryan Davis, 9 Haydn Thomas, 8 Richard Baxter, 7 James Scaysbrook, 6 Tom Johnson, 5 James Hanks, 4 Tom Hayes (capt), 3 Hoani Tui, 2 Chris Whitehead, 1 Brett Sturgess.

The Chiefs’ Premiership team and LV team are pretty much the same and so it rather looks to me that Tigers’, who are on zero points in their own pool so rendering the next two matches largely dead rubbers, will have a combination of A team players, academy players and anybody coming back from injury who needs a bit of game time and that they will face as near a full strength Exeter team as Rob Baxter can muster.

To look for a positive this match should give the Tigers’ players dragooned into the partisan Sandy Park environment against a top rate Premiership team some good experience. Unlike at Bridgend when a mere scratch Ospreys’ XV thumped them.

Richard Cockerill would be absolutely right to pursue this policy as resources will have to be carefully husbanded with the lunacy of the Six Nations being played while the Premiership continues so that Tigers have to face four important Premiership fixtures against Leeds (a), Wasps (h), Sale (a) and Saracens(h) while being denied between a third and half of their normal starting squad. While Saracens are unlikely to be inconvenienced, Leeds will lose Fourie and Thompson, Sale; Hodgson, Cueto and Sheridan and Wasps; Flutey, Simpson, Shaw, Payne and Worsley to the EPS squad for the Six Nations.

Me? Well as even Sky seem to have lost interest, showing just one match from the competition on each of the coming two weekends, the first being from Abu Dhabi (now there’s a surprise!), and they have yet to decide what morsel they’ll set before us the following week.

With the excellent ESPN not involved and the prospect of listening to Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes, with Harrison being the most annoying commentator who witters on banally giving a perfect example of how to talk for hours while saying nothing worth listening to, my interest is restricted.

But I reckon a victory for Exeter and good luck to them in their future endeavours as they then just have a trip to Kingston Park to navigate to try and book their semi-final spot ahead of Quins. You see what I mean about the organisation of this competition – why on Earth wilfully manufacture a situation where the two clubs being the most remote from each other are obliged, with their supporters, to undertake a return journey of almost 750 miles to fulfil the fixture, although that’s a trip to the shops compared to Abu Dhabi.

Posted by: TheLeicesterTigers.co.uk (IP Logged)

Date: 25/01/2011 16:22

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:02:01:18:34:53 by Stephen Bath.