Tigers v Sarries Preview

By ChrisC
September 19 2011

Is That You Jonesey? By ChrisC With an expectedly poor start to the season listening to Tigers telling the supporters not to panic is rather like watching episodes of “Dad’s Army” and having a whole group of resident Corporal Jones’s.

Down at Watford meanwhile, and in spite of a reported £6.4 million loss in their last financial year, all is calm with a cosy family atmosphere prevailing. I can visualise the whole Saracens’ family laagered somewhere near Watford feasting on roast Eland and Pinotage, then after the meal the bonneted womenfolk getting out their sewing meanwhile the men whittle wooden toys for the children, who’re playing in the shade of the trees, while rich uncles Rupert and Nigel beam over them as kindly uncle Brendan ministers to the sickly. It’s all so lovely I can almost smell the bread baking, in fact I feel so lovely and snuggly I think I’ll write the rest of this wearing my jim-jams and Rupert Bear slippers. Truly a latter day Walton Family, with a South African flavour, obviously.

But back on planet Earth while the spin doctors of the clubs that seem to outnumber coaches these days, shuffle off to replenish their hair gel, there are causes for concern.

At Tigers, constrained by the salary cap and punished by having twelve players removed for the adventure down to New Zealand, all of whom played regularly in Tigers’ starting line up last season other than Geordan Murphy who was injured from January but still made sixteen starts.

The team is badly disrupted by players from pivotal positions being at the World Cup or injured and it shows, especially in the pack, so unlike the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard who, in response to the exhortations of Corporal Jack Jones, never seem to blink in the face of perceived overwhelming odds, there is concern amongst the Tigers’ faithful, especially given the matches still ahead of their team before the “all clear” sounds.

Saracens have seen eight players seconded for World Cup duty, although Smit has yet to actually play for them, however thanks to a smart recruitment policy worthy of one of Private Walker’s deals, (“I can offer you a good South African – no questions asked squire”) the Watford club have been able to field a team that could have been on parade last year as a consequence of squad rotation.

Recruitment and squad management at Saracens has been second to none, the cause for panic there could be whether South African billionaire Johann Rupert will show the same staying power as the admirable Nigel Wray in the face of such buttock clenching losses. Mr Rupert didn’t get to stay a billionaire and become The Sunday Times Businessman of the Year in 1988 by letting the odd £6.4 million disappear from his investments, which include Swiss based luxury good provider Richemont (owner of Cartier, van Cleef & Arpels, Mont Blanc and Dunhill) and ex tobacco company Remgro, better known here as Rothmans, which is now an investment vehicle, without some remedial action being taken.

In spite of the Champion’s title last term it remains to be seen whether support will improve for the self styled “team with a South African flavour” although the portents are not good with just 5937 being bothered to turn up for their opening home game which is down from the 6087 that witnessed the first Vicarage Rd match last year.

Last season, and despite of their success on the field, home attendance at Vicarage Road during the league matches, excluding the end of season knock out competition, was just shy of 7500, the biggest crowd being 10439 for the home match against Gloucester, who traditionally have a large travelling support.

In spite of wheezes such as the “double header” and playing home games at Wembley the numbers haven’t worked out and they now have a putative proposition to play their home fixture in the Heineken Cup against Biarritz in Cape Town!

Nigel Wray has, since his original 1995 investment, stuck by Saracens through very little thick and plenty of thin and on the face of it Mr Wray, urbane as John Le Mesurier’s wonderful Sgt. Wilson, and the reclusive Mr Rupert make odd business partners.

Mr Rupert is reputed to be South Africa’s second wealthiest person with a fortune estimated at $3.8 billion, bettered only by the Oppenheimer family, so it is maybe surprising that Saracens are involved in the relatively modest Copthall project rather than Mr Rupert simply acquiring QPR from Bernie Ecclestone, who last month sold his 66% stake to Malayasian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes. Although the £13.7m loss posted by QPR for 2009-10 makes Saracens look a pillar of financial rectitude.

Mr Rupert reportedly had an earlier interest in English football and, before alighting on Saracens, was linked with the purchase of Blackburn Rovers and the South African consortium that bid £300m for Newcastle United and although he denied any involvement in either bid there seems little doubt of his involvement in the attempted purchase of Wakefield RFC in partnership with Miami Dolphins’ Wayne Huizenga with the intention of rebranding the Yorkshire club a South African flavoured “London Tribe”. The plan seemingly was for the new club to be based near the ex-pat South African heartland at QPR’s Loftus Road, the RFU scuppered that deal but there could have been no such RFU opposition to the acquisition of QPR.

Given his avowed long term commitment to Saracens, the availability of finance without recourse to the local Captain Mainwaring and the potential for obtaining the Holy Grail of the ex-pat South African supporter base in West London, this seems an odd deal not to have been done, particularly as it was the model for the original “London Tribe” to be at Loftus Road and that was with a team that still needed to be promoted to the Premiership, whereas Saracens are already there and have the title of Champions to boot, but all is not lost, perhaps Al Fayed is waiting for a call so he can get rid of Fulham.

So while I would be a “stupid boy”, even more abject than Private Frank Pike, not to see short term problems at Tigers maybe it’s a better place to be in the medium term than in the board room or in the sparsely populated stands at Saracens.

On Sunday Saracens hosted promoted Worcester Warriors managing to attract a meagre crowd to Vicarage Road and having watched the match they will be lucky to get that many if the fare on offer then is anything to go by.

Saracens continue to play their efficient but stultifying brand of rugby in which they are well coached by Brendan Venter’s surrogate, the immensely likeable Mark McCall and his team.

The system they play has been well analysed by their opposition and from what I’ve seen thus far there are two distinct ways of countering it being used; the first, as utilised by Wasps, is to engage a precision blitz defence to pick off and isolate the pods before, like an Impi deploying their Buffalo Horned attack, they can rumble onward, the second; as used by Worcester, is to try to mirror the Saracens’ system.

Whichever tactic is used it must be executed with ruthless accuracy which Wasps did and Worcester didn’t, having engaged in a battle Rorkes Drift in the first half they made an error and at last that sublime passer of the ball; Hodgson got his backs into play and Strettle went over for a superb try. Worcester were then obliged to chase the match which is Eland and Castle Milk Stout to Saracens, and they were rewarded by Mr Llyr Apgeraint-Roberts with a try for Barritt.

I am trying not to criticise referees this season mindful of; “they have a hard job”, “there’d be no match without them” and other trite comments brought out by apologists for poor performances by match officials but Mr Apgeraint-Roberts was awful. In large part the home side got the rub of the green but Mr Apgeraint-Roberts also aerated it and applied some Autumn lawn feed for good measure when he awarded Barritt’s try without recourse to the TV match official when the score was, shall we say, debatable and defied the laws of probability.

The frustration for me is that Saracens have some truly wonderful players and I just want to see them play, not endlessly trundle around in some preordained horrendously boring system.

Meanwhile the previous day an even smaller crowd of 4214 turned up at Kingston Park to watch Tigers play Falcons.

Tigers will be counting themselves lucky that they didn’t add a further “L” to their form line but they didn’t and the Corporal Jones’s amongst the Tigers’ faithful will be delighted that this is no longer “the worst start to a season” – what on Earth will the numbskulls in the media have to say now?

Tigers have started with two losses and a win which is what they did last season but still ended atop the league, while in the 2002/3 World Cup a similar start was made but with a less propitious outcome.

Tigers pack was much better for the arrival of Mr White. Tigers defence was again dreadful, disorganised, ill disciplined and shambolic although for all that both Tigers and their hosts tried and succeeded in playing some attractive and exciting rugby, it’s just a pity more locals weren’t there to see it.

Next week Tigers start a run of what would be very difficult fixtures at the best of times and at present, with so many of the various starting combinations absent and with an injury crisis looking set to worsen by the time Saturday’s team is announced, it looks daunting in the extreme.

In the front row Saracen’s Carlos Nieto was again outstanding against Worcester ably assisted by the immensely likeable and talented Schalk Brits who went off with a nasty injury but young Jamie George gave a good account of himself at the set piece although naturally Brits all field play was missed. Welshman Rhys Gill was very solid and once Deon Carstens came on even Mr Apgeraint-Roberts spotted there’s something not quite right about the South African’s technique.

Tigers continued to work their way through their front row resources with the freshly returned Julian White retiring hurt with a sore shoulder and giving way to young Brookes who immediately succumbed to an ankle injury. It was left to Tigers’ old boy Michael Holford, on loan from Nottingham, to hold the fort which he did to excellent effect and another old boy, also from just up the M1; Tom Youngs, produced a nice vignette of a performance.

However the Saracens’ front trio look settled and, whether or not Brits is recovered, if Julian White is still hors de combat I can’t see much change for Tigers at the set piece.

The Saracens’ line out looks as accomplished as it did last term, effective and well disciplined with Borthwick and Botha a tremendous combination helped by the referee failing to spot an endless stream of transgressions which messed up the Worcester set piece. With Skivington also sidelined for Tigers with a neck injury young Kitchener did a decent job but it’s his loose play where he catches the eye. Tigers do have the benefit of Mafi so I see the line out being pretty even if next week’s match officials deign to enforce the laws but Kitchener will need to sharpen up in training this week if he is to partner the ever excellent Ed Slater and parity is to be achieved. In loose play though the Tigers look to have the edge.

Justin Melck is a somewhat underrated player outside of Watford but he’s a quiet assassin in the Richard Hill mould and is very destructive, he was partnered by the superb Andy Saull who I remain surprised, given the travails of Lewis Moody and the question marks over Hendre Fourie at international level, doesn’t feature more on the England radar. Saull has tremendous pace when the Saracens’ system release him from peeling spuds in the cook house of the breakdown and he’s a real open side.

Many will say that it’s Brits or Borthwick where the heart of this squad ticks; au contraire, it’s in the capacious chest of the ever magnificent Ernst Joubert. Here’s a player with a soul and who, myself as a Brad Pitt lookalike inside a middle aged body, I feel for, locked as he is, Shrek like, in the ugly body that is Saracens.

Tigers’ back row of the terrific Tongan Steve Mafi, who is like a South Seas’ Tom Croft, was superb at Kingston Park and given the chance I think he’ll give the Saracens plenty to think about. New signing Julian Salvi was also excellent against Newcastle and is showing up as top rate signing, problems elsewhere in what passes for a system at Tigers means that he’s having to spend too much time shoring up the trenches but when he gets loose in attack he’s very impressive. With Thomas Waldrom, now also snatched off to New Zealand I wonder who’ll fill in as the Tigers’ cupboard is looking very bare?

In the half backs South African Neil deKock was effective and controlled proceedings, being given an armchair ride by his pack until he went off with what looked like a dead leg. If he’s not fit then with Wigglesworth away in New Zealand I expect new signing from Cambridge; Ben Spencer will get a start but the odds are that’ll it again be de Kock partnering either Hodgson or Farrell. I guess that knowing how wonderful a passer and distributor Hodgson is seeing him subjugated by the Saracens’ system is particularly sad and when a Worcester mistake was seized upon and the ex Sale man got his backs away it was lovely to see.

From an opposition viewpoint in terms of attack it matters not whether Farrell or Hodgson starts at #10 but defensively Farrell is a much sterner obstacle.

Young finally got 20 minutes to strut his stuff against his erstwhile employers last Saturday and did well although against Saracens it may be better to stick with the less inspired and largely error free Grindal, while I’d like to see Jeremy Staunton start at fly half for the same reason.

With the chaotic Tigers’ defence we’ve witnessed I think it would be too risky to follow the Wasps’ strategy and Tigers know from bitter experience that the very worst thing that a team can do is try to play too much expansive rugby against Saracens, better to play as did Worcester and contain them and hope to pick them off if they err as they will hope to do to Tigers. It’ll be sterile and boring but that’s just the way it is – no marks for style or panache when Saracens come calling.

Tony Allen again did his sailor on the Fighting Temeraire impression by turns mounting the pumps to stem the leaks in the defence generated by Ford and Twelvetrees and trying to generate attacks, usually with little support.

The other reason for my preference for Staunton is that Allen will need help coping with Brad Barritt who will crash the ball up all afternoon, although like so many of his colleagues he’s actually a more rounded player than that dictated by Saracens’ strategy.

Adam Powell was very strong in his support play but obviously constrained in what he could do in attack and Billy Twelvetrees will need to be at his defensive best as well as returning to the kicking tour de force he had at Adams Park, consigning the disaster of Kingston Park to the box where lives his last gasp missed kick that failed to snatch this fixture last term.

Out wide David Strettle again showed what a glaring error it was for Martin Johnson to take Cueto instead of the wonderfully balanced flying Strettle (or for that matter Ugo Monye). Like his new colleague, Joe Maddock, who used to score tries for fun at Bath, little was seen or heard of him as the ball rarely ventured out that far but they are dangerous and the enfant terrible James Short is in the wings. Plenty of fast talent most usually wasted and surely tempted to bring a book to read to stave off the boredom. Alex Goode galloped around and had a kicking duel with his namesake but that was it really from the talented full back.

Tigers for their part, with Matthew Tait still off sick, had to persevere with Niall Morris and give young Andy Forsyth a run. Neither saw much ball but not due to the stricture of any system but rather the lack of it and Hamilton looked well below par at full back. I’d like to see him swop position with Morris and play where the Kiwi has done his best work in the past.

I’d like to be positive about Tigers’ chances and for sure the visitors “don’t like it up ‘em” but as I don’t have enough hair to warrant the use of gel so I can’t spin things and I fear another loss looming at Welford Road for the once again and even more depleted Tigers now that Waldrom has gone – Jonesey! Are you there?

Tigers v Sarries Preview

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

Date: 19/09/2011 21:40

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:09:26:22:48:16 by Stephen Bath.