Tigers brizzling with confidence

Jimbo line out
By Ian Birks
May 8 2006

Captain for the day, Austin Healey, lead the Tigers to a convincing win against a greatly depleted Bristol squad. Even with nine first choice players out, Bristol kept Leicester at bay for 30 minutes.

The last thing you need at the end of a long, gruelling season is to visit Welford Road with nine of you first squad out of action. Unfortunately for Bristol, that is exaclty what they had to do.

Before we get into the match report, it was great to see Bristol back at Welford Road: a solid, traditional club with fantastic support - I even like the look of the strip (ecept for the red triangle on the away shirt!!)

The home side took the lead with a Murphy penalty in only the second minute after the Tigers started strongly. In a brief excursion into the Leicester half, Strange replied with a well taken penalty to square the game just over 20 minutes later. Tigers dominated much of the possession and territory throughout with strong runs from ex-Bristolian, Daryl Gibson, together with some great open play from Cullen and Moody the visitors had very little to offer other than defence.

Chuter was first to cross the try line with ten minutes left on the clock after a catch and drive; the Bristol pack proving no match for Leicester on the day.

Murphy missed the conversion but it was his work in the midfiled that helped in setting up Varndell's 14th try of the season only five minutes later. Healey put in the looping pass to allow the winger to score in the corner taking the score to 13-3, at half-time.

A second try from Chuter on 45 minutes took the score on to 18-3, rapidly followed by a try from Tuilagi to give the Tigers the try-bonus point. Vesty converted and the scoreboeard tickd over to 25-3

Try number five came from Holford just about on the hour mark. The conversion from replacement Sam Vesty took the home side to their final tally for the day of 32 points.

Sadly, Bristol had to live off scraps on their last run out of the season. When they had the ball, the inexperience showed and the visitors had little to offer from forwards or backs.

Leicester pretty well dominated the forward game and Bristol had few answers to the direct running of Gibson, Chuter, Murphy, Cullen to name but a few.

The bench was in demand, as well, with all seven seeing action on the day.

Three kickers took turns with Murphy, Vesty and Goode all having shots at the posts with varying levels of success!

The win today guaranteed Leicester second position and a home draw in the play-off finals against high-flying London Irish; although it was the Gloucester-Wasps clash that captivated most, as fourth place and a trip to Sale Sharks went to the winner. Man of the Match: so many to chose from; today was a true team effort. Moody and Cullen were excellent, but on overall performance over the 80 minutes I must agree with the 'official' choice: Daryl Gibson.

Teams: Leicester: Murphy; A Tuilagi, Lloyd, Gibson, Varndell; Healey, Bemand; Rowntree, Chuter, Morris; Hamilton, Cullen; Jennings, Moody, L Deacon. Replacements: Vesty, Ellis, Goode, Corry, Buckland, Johnson, Holford. Bristol: Stortoni; Robinson, Lima, Cox, Stanojevic; Strange, Nicholls; Irish, Nelson, Crompton (capt), Sambucetti, Winters, Lewis, Short, Ward-Smith. Replacements: Hilton, Clark, Morgan, Grieve, Rauluni, Gray, Hayes. Referee: Ashley Rowden

Other results from the premiership today: Saints 34 -Sale 36 Irish 30 - Saracens 18 Gloc 32 - Wasps 37 Bath 25 - Wuss 22 Falcons 54 - Leeds 19 This means that the 2006 play-off semi-final games are: Sale v Wasps Tigers v Irish