Tigers Escape Again As Tyke's Hearts Broken At The

By Vicky C
March 12 2006

Tigers came into this match at a rain-sodden Welford Road looking to get their push of a pay-off place back on track, and so nearly ended up paying a heavy price.

Tigers looked under pressure right at the start, more from their own uncertainty than anything, and disappointingly started in the same vein as last week gifting a sloppy penalty inside 3 minutes when Alex Tuilagi was penalised for being well in front of the kicker. De Marigny stepped up and slotted the peanlty, 3-0 Leeds .

Leicester slowly began to get into the game. Good rucking by Louis Deacon, following no attempt by Parks to roll away, resulted in a penalty to Leicester, but frustratingly the touch find by Healey missed. Leeds returned the kick, Alex took a quick throw in and Tigers started to slowly make ground up the pitch. Leeds collapsed the resulting maul, resulting in a penalty to Leicester which came to nothing.

Leicester started to get on top, good play across the field resulted in a nice pass by Smith to Vesty in the line. The ball came back to the right, where there was a possible overlap but Healey missed it and was cornered. The situation was rescued by Bemand. The forwards set up again, and shunted Leeds back who returned the favour in kind. It seemed that the ball was down over the line, but instead it popped out the back of the ruck and Buckland dived over from what seemed like 50cm. Vesty, taking on the kicking duties, converted and the score was 7-3 to Leicester.

The forwards looked up for this one, and started to really get stuck into the Leeds pack. Ben Kay found himself playing scrum half and fed a nice pass to Louis Deacon. Alex charged up touchline but penalty to Leeds for holding on. Despite the awful weather, the handling was very good.

Marshall decided to take on Leicester, and eventually the first scrum was awarded. It didn't look good for the Tykes when the Tigers pack has them on the rack on their own scrum. The scrum was wheeled by the Tigers but White allowed it to continue but eventually Leeds coughed up the ball. The reversed scrum was reset numerous times by White, who eventually got bored and gave free kick to Leicester.

A beautiful line kick by Healey led to a line out just short of the Leeds line. Ben Kay somehow came aroud the back of the lineout, knocked the ball backwards from the hands of the Leeds player and the forwards were on the charge. The ball came out and went along the line to Vesty who went straight through the Leeds defence which was all over the place. Unfortunately he missed the conversion, 12-3 to Leicester.

Leeds started to go forward but turned the ball over when they overthrew a line out. The ball was retrieved, but we eventually coughed up another penalty on 50m, which De Marigny converted. 12-6 to Leicester.

Leicester regained possession for a time, and sloppy work in the Leeds lineout led to Leicester scrum. The ball came out from Bemand to Healey, to Smith in space. He stepped the inexperienced Blackett in the centre and crashed in underneath the posts for a lovely try. Vesty got the conversion and the Tigers were starting to pull away at 19-6, and it was looking omninous for Leeds.

After 26 minutes the pack was completely on top in the scrum resulting in turnover for Leicester. The pack started driving forward again towards the Leeds try line, but Louis Deacon gave up a completely unnecessary penalty for mountaineering when we had complete control.

Good tackling from Buckland stopped a Leeds drive in it's tracks with Marshall down injured. Ben Kay clattered into Leeds turning ball over, but this was turned it over to Leeds only for us to get it back. Alex picked up the ball and launched it into the Crumbie, nearly taking Barnsey's head off and almost landing him in the LRI burns unit as his coffee nearly landed in his lap!

Leeds were then penalised for Parks tap dancing all over Healey, which White warned them about having just done exactly the same to Leicester.

Leeds won lineout ball, and started off up the field. From a resulting penalty, Marshall took a quick tap and Leeds were suddenly up to 5m line, and some stong phases in the forwards saw the ball come out to their backs who promptly turned it over. Leeds sent on reinforcements in the form of Rayno Gerber to shore up the creaking pack.

Play became a bit sloppy as the rain continued to hammer down, Leicester gaining an interception through Jennings only to lose it forwards.

The second half started with Leon running onto a poor restart which had he gathered cleanly would have been game over. Instead, Abraham was penalised for throwing a player out of a maul leading to Leeds pen. De Marigny missed, the score remaining 19-6 to Leicester.

Then the all too familiar spectre of ill discipline started to rear it's ugly head. We seemed to switch off, gifting Leeds another penalty which De Marigny coverted leaving the score at 19-9 to Leicester.

The game then went through a phase where neither side could really assert any dominance. Leeds' set piece had been suffering all night, both in the scrum and Bulloch having a nightmare in the line out. Rowntree left to be replaced by Darren Morris, and Abraham was replaced permanently by Henry Tuilagi.

Leeds started to make some headway upfield only to give away a forward pass. Play degenerated further and Leicester looked like they were completely asleep by now, whilst Justin Marshall had clearly decided that Leeds could get back into the game, and was on a one man mission to make it happen.

Some coherent play by Leeds saw them camped on the Tigers try line, the ball eventually finding Marshall who crashed over for a try. This put a completely different complexion on the game when De Marigny converted to bring the score back to 19-16.

The Leicester forwards started to pick up the pace again, but this was short-lived when Leeds broke upfield and Balshaw almost scored following some nice touches. A Leeds lineout from 5m had them believing that they could win. Leeds were digging deep by this time and really putting the Tigers under pressure. They had a 3 on 1 overlap and created a try from nothing for Tom Biggs. De Marigny converted to take the score to 19-23, and Leicester were looking down and out with Leeds hanging on for a shock result.

With the clock edging closer to full time, a brilliant break by Lloyd from deep led to line out in the corner. Leeds cracked and gave away a silly penalty for taking out Hamilton's legs. With the clock ticking down Healey kicked for corner, and Tigers last roll of the dice. Ben Kay took a safe line out, and on came a huge drive for the line. Tigers were stopped just short, and with 8 seconds left on the clock, the ball came out to Will Skinner who dived over. White felt the need to go to the TMO to make sure, but the try was given much to the delight of the crowd, especially as this meant the all important bonus point. With the last kick, Vesty converted. Final score 26-23, and the comeback kings had done it again.

Leeds were very good value once they got organised, and they had several good moments, notably when Gerber came on and steadied the scrum, the introduction of Balshaw, and the sheer bloody mindedness of Justin Marshall.

No team is a pushover these days and we can't expect to win if we only play for 35 minutes out of 80. The biggest plus point of the night was the very welcome return of Scott Bemand. In tandem with Healey, who had an excellent game at fly half, they provided us with a glimpse of what could happen if the backs get some decent quick ball. Sam Vesty was also excellent and he proved that he is an able place kicker when given the chance. The downside was that we took our foot off the pedal far too early, and had Leeds not cracked right at the end we could have been looking at a very different result.

Leicester: S Vesty, L Lloyd, O Smith, D Hipkiss, A Tuilagi, A Healey, S Bemand, G Rowntree (D Morris, 50), J Buckland, M Holford, L Cullen (J Hamilton, 66), B Kay, L Abraham (H Tuilagi, 40 & 56) , S Jennings (W Skinner, 72), L Deacon.
Replacements not used: E Taukafa, R Broadfoot, A Dodge.

Tries: Buckland, Vesty, Smith, Skinner. Con: Vesty (3)

Leeds : Biggs, Snyman, C Jones, Blackett (Murphy, 60), Bell (Balshaw, 60), De Marigny, Marshall, Lensing, Bulloch (Rawlinson, 53), Shelley (Gerber, 37), Hooper, Palmer, Dunbar (Reid, 60), Parks, Thomas.
Replacements not used: McMillan, Craig.

Tries: Marshall, Biggs. Con: De Marigny (2) Pens: De Marigny (3)