Love is not love that alters.......

By razcal
December 10 2003

......when it alteration finds. I am fed up with some of the griping going on because results are not what they used to be. However replies on the message board tend to see threads degenerate into a “You’re not a real fan,” or “You have got your eyes shut and your head in the sand,” type exchange.

And both sides know more about rugby than the other. So this is my considered reply. I invite an equally considered response from a member of the opposite faction.

The main gripes seem to be that we are not winning much and that we are not playing well. I am not going to say that black is white but I am going to take issue with how you should respond. For four years Leicester fans were spoilt rotten, some of them it now appears literally, by a series of amazing results. If you ask my son he will tell you that even supping une bière blanche in Montmartre after “that game” I was telling him that it would not always be like this and that we were not proper fans because we had trekked to Paris to see the team win the European Cup. We would become proper fans when we trekked to grotty grounds knowing that we were likely to see our team lose but we still wanted to show our support. And that sort of time will come I added. I didn’t believe it would come so quickly but now it has I for one am determined to keep both a sense of proportion and a sense of humour while avoid losing my dignity.

It is almost an insult to the achievement of winning the league 4 years in a row and back to back European cups to behave now as if anything less is not good enough. The results were phenomenal and it should be clearer now just how difficult it was to reach those heights. Instead of moaning that they are not continuing we should pay respect to what was achieved.

Why were they so good then and not so good now? We can all have our theories but lets be honest, if we really knew we would be spending our working days enjoying ourselves much more down at Oval Park. Popular theories seem to be that Deano is some kind of unfeeling megalomaniac and has driven individuality and flair out of the club.

Don’t go for that? Well lets have a conspiracy theory then. The refs have been out to get us since “the hand of Back” and the RFU/English Rugby have ganged up on us to give other teams a chance. We have to supply more players to England than other clubs which impacts on our performance.

Don’t want to own up to uncontrolled twitching? Well go for the old bad luck line. i.e Geordan breaking his leg and decisions like Stade Français can use basketball techniques to outwit our defence and the “Uncontested scrum” fiasco? ( Should those last two actually go into the conspiracy bracket.?)

One notion I own up to having subscribed to is that the back’s coaching has been poor since Pat Howard left.

I can’t go with any one of these theories. I have met Deano a couple of times and know people who know him well. He is a strong personality but not a blinkered monster. He wants the best for Tigers and shows loyalty to people who share his passion for the club. I have worked with two people who went through the academy and U21 set up only to be shown the door without making it. They both speak highly of the way Deano broke the news to them and of the way he insists on the academy and U21 players keeping up with their education. Some testament to bad man management that. Deano has always been eager to pass the credit for the good times onto the coaching and management team he has put in place so I don’t think he should take the whole wrap now. Sacking him might cheer some of you up but who would we get in better? Sarries have changed DoR’s more often than some of their fans change their socks and where has it got them. I called for Woodward’s head after the 1999 World Cup but I was clearly wrong. The RFU’s patience with Woodward was rewarded. How can the man who says with relish that Geordan is the best player he has and who has kept Austin Healey on a long lead be accused of coaching in a straight jacket and relentlessly driving out flair?

The conspiracy theory is attractive because it explains everything away neatly. However, I can’t believe that the incompetent lot who run the game would have it in them to stitch Leicester up. If they tried they would fail because they are useless. I think we may have suffered from some ideas which were implemented without being thought through but Gloucester would claim to have been the biggest sufferers from innovative ideas. “The Ref” will confirm that referees are trained to not to right one wrong with another and that when they get things wrong it is not by intent. So bye-bye conspiracy theory.

Losing players to England, both for training and games has not helped. But we did win in 1999-2000.

Pat Howard gave the club a lot but even if subsequent back’s coaches have not been at his level how can world class players lose what he gave them?

So what has gone wrong then? I believe it is a complicated series of factors. Other clubs have caught up. Tigers were the first club to have a serious academy and a thorough system of appraisal which helped players improve. Players like Moody, Lloyd and Murphy came on stream when other clubs had to go scouting. Now all clubs have this. Tigers bought in specialist coaches for defence, kicking and speed, agility and quickness ( saq). Now all clubs do it. The salary cap means that we can not use our large fan base to spend money on new players. Worse still, French clubs have no salary cap. Perpignan and Stade Français pay £5,000,000 this season. So not only can they entice Stimpson, Freshwater and Short away they can ensure the next bunch of Pat Howards and Josh Kronfelds go there and not come here.

So things are evening up. Other teams have imitated what we have done best, look at the way teams like Sale have improved their defensive organization and some have improved on what they have seen us do. Maybe also, after a long period of outstanding form it is only natural that there should be a dip. It was perhaps more a miracle that it lasted 4 seasons rather than a huge surprise that it has finally dipped. Another question is “How big a dip is it?” A small margin can have a big impact on performance. When we kept winning it looked like we were vastly superior to our opponents. But in truth we may only have been a little in front and maybe now we are only a little behind. We have not had much luck but I used to get fed up with other fans telling us we won because we were lucky or cheats and enjoy telling them we made our own luck by working hard.

So where do we go from here? I for one, am not arrogant enough to believe I know more about Tigers’ problems and rugby in general than Deano so I will not call for his head. I will remain patient and loyal. I love the Tigers in a way similar to how we love our children. I enjoy their successes but pick up the pieces in the bad times. I am proud when they do well and am disappointed when they let me down. But I do not pretend they have no defects when they do well nor do I forget the good they have done when they fall from grace. If you claimed to have loved the Tigers or Deano in good times but rail against them in bad times maybe you never loved them properly in the first place. You are like the parent who humiliates or abuses their child when they fail at something in the mistaken belief that that will improve the child or just out of frustration borne of living your life through theirs. It is part of rugby that you should be able to lose graciously as well as win well.

I await the incoming flak.