TIGER TALES
By The Saracens
September 29 2021
After a week’s break, it’s business as usual as Sarries take on Leicester Tigers on Saturday. After 2 weeks, this is already proving to be a topsy-turvey season. Tigers sit proudly at the top of the table alongside last year’s champions Harlequins, both with maximum points while Exeter and Bristol languish at the bottom. Sarries are midtable but with a game in hand over everyone but Wasps.
Looking at the Tigers’ squad, Borthwick has managed to weed out many of the old stagers who weren’t pulling their weight and in their stead has brought through some promising talent from the Academy. Ben White, Johnny McPhillips, Darryl Marfo, Sam Lewis, Tomas Lavanini, Zac Henry, Joaquin Diaz Bonilla, Jordan Coghlan, Luan de Bruin & Ryan Bower have departed for pastures new and in have come Freddie Burns (Fly Half), Bryce Hegarty (fly half/full back), Eli Snyman (2nd Row), Marco van Staden (Flanker), Francois Van Wyk (Prop) Tom Cowan-Dickie (hooker) and our own Juan Pablo Socino (Centre). Academy graduates include Lewis Chessum (2nd row), Jacob Cusick (back), Tim Hoyt & Seb Smith (both front row). They join Will Hurd, Nic Dolly & Julian Montoya (who joined during the 20/21 season) along with Jordan Olowfela and George Worth who return from a season long loan. The influence of Richard Wigglesworth is evident in the development of Tigers exciting young scrum half Jack Von Poortvliet. Tigers of course retained many of their big names: George Ford, (a rejuvenated) Dan Cole, Ellis Genge, Tom & Ben Youngs and Nemani Nadolo (not to mention the input of one Richard Wigglesworth)
Tigers have had a dream start to the season. Under new boss Steve Borthwick they seem to have found themselves again after a couple of years in the wilderness. They set off with a magnificent victory over Exeter scoring 5 tries in the process, including a magical start from Harry Potter (sorry) the dual qualified anglo-aussie wing and a brace from hooker Nic Dolly. Their second fixture was possibly an even better performance – a bonus point win over Gloucester down at Castle Grim (never easy) with more tries for Dolly & Potter and by all accounts an excellent performance from George Ford (after his snub by Eddie). Borthwick has however commented on the need for discipline and the need to take the chances that are offered (sounds a bit like Sarries doesn’t it!)
I assume Borthers will be reluctant to change much of his team. He has played virtually the same 15 in Tigers’ 2 games so far. The Youngs’ boys may be absent: Tom has thus far been unavailable and Ben pulled out of the England training squad with a niggle (although young Van Poortvliet has proved a very capable deputy - one last hurrah for Wiggy maybe??), and Montoya is with the Pumas so probably something like:
Steward, Potter, Scott, Kelly, Nadolo, Ford, Youngs/Van Poortvliet, Genge, Dolly, Cole, Wells, Snyman, Martin, Reffell, Liebenberg
Mark McCall also has a dilemma on his hands – do you change a winning team? Max Malins came through 80 minutes during Storm’s victory over Ealing last Friday and is likely to start. If Goodey and/or Maitland are fit I would start them too. This new Leicester at Welford Road will provide strong opposition. There are also rumours that Jamie George may be allowed to start given he missed out on all 3 tests. If true that would be a huge gain. So (assuming availability) I would go with:-
Malins, Maitland, Morris/Lozowski, Tompkins, Lewington, Goode/Lozowski, Davies; Adams-Hale, George/Woolstencroft, Riccioni, Swinson, Isiekwe, Wray, Earl, B Vunipola.
But what do I know! We are in the hands of Mr Ridley: apart from one horror story he’s usually quite sound. Mr DG and I will be away in the sun so cheer the lads on, on my behalf.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021:10:11:08:22:14 by Darraghgirl.
I've found it tricky to work out how teams are really doing so far. I suspect it's just too early to tell?
With our performance against Bristol I have gone from thinking any points taken would be a huge result, to thinking it was a brilliant performance, to seeing Bristol against Wasps and being slightly concerned that we actually created so little in attack. I think it's probably best to concentrate on how good it was to start with a win.
Tigers I'm sure would have bitten your hand off to be 2 from 2 so far including a home win against Chiefs even if they were denuded of their top talent. Borthwick and co seem to have done a very good job in getting them back on track. I thought in both games the pack looked solid, the lineout which hasn't been good for a while is unrecognisable and seems solid on their ball and challenging on opposition. Ford has been playing, kicking and passing beautifully off so much front-foot ball and their defence seems improved too.
Possible pluses for us are despite some star talent in the front row they perhaps haven't yet translated that into dominance at scrum time. As good as Ford looked on front-foot ball Tigers lost shape pretty quickly against both Chiefs and Glaws as they played their way back into the games. Their defence in the central channels is great but a pretty average Glaws team created no end of trouble wider out. Two of their best backs; Steward and Nadolo thrived on the opposition feeding them endless ball, there seems a fairly obvious solution to that.
So this game will be fascinating and with or without some Lions back will probably be a better acid-test of where the squad is. I'm not sure this is a game we can defend our way to a win and if we give Ford enough chances he'll unlock our defence. On that basis I'd be really encouraged if we kept the ball a bit more. We had some really great chances against Bristol where we just kicked the ball away. In terms of the team I think we need Isiekwe or CHH at 6 in terms of ballast and options at the lineout. Goode to 10 and Lozo to 12 or 13? with Malins at FB looks good to me.
I can't wait for the game and I'm sure we'll have a cracking team to put out there. Good luck to them and our travelling support.