Bob Dwyer Rugby Workshops

Welford Road. Saturday, 9^th January. 2010.

Leicester 34 – Wasps 8.

The big freeze across England stopped nearly everyone last weekend, but the Tigers were having none of that. They were ready and waiting for their arch-rivals, London Wasps, and nothing was going to stand in their way. Wasps had won this fixture on each of their last two visits to Welford Road and the Tigers wanted revenge. Their army of fans clearly anticipated as much and a crowd of 24,000 braved the freezing weather and icy wind to be a part of it.

The match began brightly enough for the visitors and the opening play continued uninterrupted for 1min. 40secs. until Danny Cipriani picked out the Tigers prop, Dan Cole, in the defensive line. Excellent prospect though Cole is, and in all facets of the game, this task was understandably beyond him, and Cipriani made the break for the try by Mark van Gisbergen. Unfortunately for Wasps, he missed the easy conversion, and it was virtually all downhill for them for the rest of the match.

The first scrum did not come until the 21^st minute, but, against all expectations, Wasps had much the better of it. Broster won the hit on Ayerza and the penalty went to Wasps, for Cipriani to kick the long range penalty. Wasps now led 3-8. In fact, had van Gisbergen kicked the conversion and a subsequent penalty, both easy kicks, and if Wasps had not, unbelievably, shunned a penalty shot from point blank range, they could have led 3-16, on the half-hour.

In fact, however, that was pretty much it for Wasps. Tigers controlled the game, until the customary raft of replacements came in the last 15 mins or so. Their forwards dominated both the scrum and the tackle contest, and their lineout was at least the equal of Wasps. They were clinical in attack and scored pretty much every time they visited into Wasps quarter. They scored four tries and had two disallowed by the TMO. They dominated possession to such an extent that, in the first 15 minutes of the second half, the Tigers were only required to make ONE tackle, and that one bundled the Wasps ball-carrier into touch. This is an astonishing statistic!

Before the match began, TV commentator, Stuart Barnes, noted that “If the Leicester forwards dominate the Wasps pack, ….”. After the match, he said that the Tigers “at the moment, look quite the best team in England.” These were telling comments – the first almost a prophesy and the second a succinct summary. He was correct on both counts.

Whilst I realize that I’m not alone in this opinion, I was most impressed with this Tigers performance. Their scrum can demolish opposition packs on occasion, and they have at least four props who can all be a part of this superiority. In the loose play, their forwards play ‘in the pack’ and do not, in general, loiter in the backline, waiting for someone else to get the ball for them. They are hungry for work, both on attack or on defence.

On defence, they ‘gang tackle’ most effectively – sometimes with one tackler around the legs and the others on the ball, and at other times, with powerful leg drive that simply destroys any chance of attacking continuity. On attack, their forwards are ‘at the tackle’ in numbers and provide an immediate continuity of the attacking pressure on the opposition defence.  ‘Pick and go’ amongst themselves is mixed easily with multi-phase backline attacks. They ask lots of questions of defences.

“No hesitation!” is a phrase I use constantly when coaching play at the tackle contest. I insist that arriving players strive to maintain the forward momentum with no delay whatsoever. There are about six or seven different options available to the attacking team at the tackle contest; all are excellent when effected immediately, none are, when unnecessary delay is allowed. Continuity achieved at this pace creates space for a realigned attacking line and resulted in the Tigers wings scoring three tries – their fourth was a penalty try!

Their bonus point try was a perfect example of this. Tigers won the lineout and the ball went two passes to Crane who tested the defensive line in mid-field. The arriving forwards continued the drive and assisted Crane, subsequently attracting more defenders. The ball then went back to the (by now) wide blindside to Parling. He carried forward into the defence, but off-loaded (one of the options referred to above) early to scrum-half, Youngs, on the double around. Youngs took the gap offered and put Tuqiri away on the overlap. This is a classic try which could have been scored with two or three different final scenarios, depending on the reaction of the defence. I thought it a great example of my belief the “there is no defence to perfect attack”. In fact, the Attack section of my Coaching Manual is based entirely around such philosophy and detail.

For the winners, everyone played his part, but the front row of Ayerza, Davies and Cole were the most significant contributors in all aspects of the game. Lewis Moody was his normal outstanding self and the halves, Youngs and Flood, were always involved and effectively. Mind you, in a quality performance, numbers 6,7,8,9 and 10 should always be the most prominent players. This was certainly a quality performance and these players were certainly prominent.

In the coming weeks the biggest problem that the Tigers will have, will be selections!