Tiger cubs swat baby Wasps

By Tigerstart
December 11 2002

Leicester Tigers U21s maintained their exemplary record with a convincing victory against London Wasps, notching up their twelfth consecutive back-to-back win, after a hammering of the Midlands rivals Northampton Saints 38-10, the previous weekend.

A succession of tries, 6 in total, guaranteed the victory with the up-and-coming ABC club of Cook, Buckland and Holford back in the starting line-up.

Right from Wasps kick-off, Tigers U21s hit back with a barrage of pressure. In the 8th minute, a break by Holtby downfield saw him pass outside to Hersey who scored in the corner. Taylor missed the conversion which was at a difficult acute angle. The pressure that Tigers put Wasps under continued, as they were encamped on their line. After being awarded a penalty and opting for the lineout, lock Morley gathered ball in the 13th minute and stormed over for a try in the left hand corner. Taylor failed to convert.

Wasps tried clawing their way back, opting to kick a penalty from halfway, but missed. They seemed to be holding Tigers, choosing to kick over Leicester's defensive line for touch and running the ball through their backline. Tigers countered through flanker Abraham who took on possession and ran downfield, only for Clarke to knock-on, as a try-scoring opportunity went begging.

An infringement by Tigers gave Wasps a penalty in front of the posts, that their fly-half converted. Tigers regained the upper hand in the dying few minutes of the first-half, as Morley became the provider, as he stole lineout ball and made a cracking run to set up Gerry. Taylor was able to convert, stretching their first half lead to 17-3.

Carrying from where they left off, Tigers kicked off and had a lineout on Wasps line, where the ball was spun out wide and it looked like Morley was over again. In the 42nd minute, Hersey rounded off a manoeuvre to score and Taylor was obviously attempting to emulate Stimmo (a la Nottingham) with the attempted conversion hitting the posts but it failed to fly over.

In the 53rd minute, Wasps for the first and last time breached a solid Tigers defence to score. Wasps fly-half converted Roberts try, to make the score 22-8. Tigers then sought to run the ball, through Taylor, and drive the ball down field with their strong pack, resulting from a lineout. Despite being a man down, with Abraham in the bin, Tigers remained competitive. Emulating the first team, Tigers conceded a penalty in the 60th minute, as the referee deemed they had pulled down a scrum, but Wasps could not make use of the advantage.

Sayer scored his double in between a Wasps player being binned, who showed off doing press-ups in the technical area. In the 64th minute, Sayer finished off a blindside run and in the 73rd minute he was on the receiving end of a long and miss-timed pass aimed for Morley but was able to gather possession and was clear over the line. Taylor had two difficult conversions, neither of which went over the posts.

Despite two sin-binnings and a few minor handbags, the game was well mannered and entertaining. A knee or ligament damage forced Hipkiss off the field and a Wasps player was stretchered off. The front row trio of Cook, Buckland and Holford were in prime fighting mood, especially as in the 67th minute Holford did a defence decoy run and had the Wasps replacement hooker wanting a fight. The difference in professionalism between both sides was stark - Wasps had one ball between the whole team to do a warm up, after they got out of warming up in the tunnel and onto the pitch, where our boys looked as superior.

The U21s are sitting pretty at the top of their League, with a combative and strong-willed nature about their play. The ABC trio grafted well, Morley worked hard at lock, Taylor is inter-changeable between No.10 and No.15 with Sayer an attacking full-back. The varied options of players available highlight how versatile the team is, yet regardless of personnel, Tigers look awesome.

Scoring sequence:
8 minutes Tigers try by Hersey 5-0
13 mins Tigers try by Morley 10-0
39 mins Wasps pen by fly-half 10-3
40 mins Tigers try by Gerry and con by Taylor 17-3

42 mins Tigers try by Hersey 22-3
53 mins Wasps try by Roberts 22-8
64 mins Tigers try by Sayer 27-8
73 mins Tigers try by Sayer 32-8

Date: Saturday 7th December 2002
Time: 2.30pm k/o
Weather: very cold (TT found it hard to take down copious amounts of notes, as was so cold)
Crowd: 250-300 who braved the weather and away from the lure of European Cup rugby!
Referee: Mr Gareth Roberts
Man-of-the-match: Very difficult to nominate, but found that Luke Abraham had a very good game (even though he is quite good looking, in the rugged-stubble look!) despite Morley coming a close second, as he was creator and recipient for two of the tries, as well as upsetting Wasps lineout.
Sinbin: Luke Abraham and Wasps centre (didn't get his name nor his number!)
Match reporting team: TT, Pinky, TJ, Inkworm, Tallbird and Tiger-ess.

Tigers Team:
15 Luke Sayer
14 James Hersey
13 Adam Billig
12 Danny 'posh kid' Hipkiss
11 John Holtby
10 Tim Taylor
9 Nathan Jones
1 Peter Cook
2 James Buckland
3 Michael Holford
4 Lee 'hello girls' Morley
5 James Hamilton
6 Ben Gerry
7 Peter Clarke
8 Luke 'stubble man'Abraham
Replacements: Roman Piotrowski (69 mins on for Billig), Jon Golding, Sam Raven (62 mins on for Clarke), Will Rolt (62 mins on for Jones), Steve Glitherow (38 mins on for Hipkiss), Stuart Friswell (62 mins on for Buckland), Chris Read.

London Wasps Team:
Unfortunatley, there was only the Tigers team available, but MC Tudor Thomas did read out the opposition, but the I couldn't keep up with him and was too cold at half-time to go and ask for the names.