Tigers Vs Ospreys - Friday 7.45

[FKAS]

Still lots of injuries for Tigers but Montoya on the bench is a huge boost before Saints next weekend. The youthful Tigers second row partnership Vs the experienced Welsh campaigners will be interesting.

STARTING XV
15 Freddie Steward [66]
14 Harry Potter [55]
13 Matt Scott [56]
12 Dan Kelly [50]
11 Harry Simmons [28]
10 Handré Pollard [3]
9 Jack van Poortvliet (vc) [59]
1 James Whitcombe [33]
2 Charlie Clare [67]
3 Dan Cole (vc) [303]
4 Ollie Chessum [42]
5 Cameron Henderson [26]
6 Hanro Liebenberg (c) [73]
7 Tommy Reffell [90]
8 Olly Cracknell [13]

REPLACEMENTS
16 Julián Montoya [32]
17 Dan Richardson [8]
18 Will Hurd [17]
19 Harry Wells [170]
20 Sean Jansen [14]
21 Ben Youngs [293]
22 Jimmy Gopperth [8]
23 Charlie Atkinson [9]

Ospreys: C Evans; Cuthbert, Collins, Hawkins, Giles; O Williams, Morgan-Williams; Smith, Lake, Botha, Beard, AW Jones, R Davies, Tipuric (capt), J Morgan.

Replacements: Baldwin, G Thomas, Henry, Sutton, Morris, Aubrey, K Williams, North.

[Puja]

Still no sign of PCokanasiga. Sad times.

Good to see Liebenberg and Montoya back and I'm much happier with Cracknell than Jansen at 8 - he's such a good, solid, hardworking player and I think probably deserves more starts than he gets for us.

Reserve props are a bit callow - could be difficult in the late scrums!

Puja

[FKAS]

Hurd improved the scrum last time out Vs Ospreys and Richardson had a very good reputation as a scrummager at Championship level, I'm more concerned that if the game opens up neither tends to be overly present in the loose. We're likely to need both props against Saints so getting them minutes makes sense.

Phil Cokanasiga is starting at 12 for Nottingham so hopefully that's a sign he's getting some minutes before coming back into the 23 next weekend.

[Banquo]

Still lots of injuries for Tigers but Montoya on the bench is a huge boost before Saints next weekend. The youthful Tigers second row partnership Vs the experienced Welsh campaigners will be interesting.

STARTING XV
15 Freddie Steward [66]
14 Harry Potter [55]
13 Matt Scott [56]
12 Dan Kelly [50]
11 Harry Simmons [28]
10 Handré Pollard [3]
9 Jack van Poortvliet (vc) [59]
1 James Whitcombe [33]
2 Charlie Clare [67]
3 Dan Cole (vc) [303]
4 Ollie Chessum [42]
5 Cameron Henderson [26]
6 Hanro Liebenberg (c) [73]
7 Tommy Reffell [90]
8 Olly Cracknell [13]

REPLACEMENTS
16 Julián Montoya [32]
17 Dan Richardson [8]
18 Will Hurd [17]
19 Harry Wells [170]
20 Sean Jansen [14]
21 Ben Youngs [293]
22 Jimmy Gopperth [8]
23 Charlie Atkinson [9]

Ospreys: C Evans; Cuthbert, Collins, Hawkins, Giles; O Williams, Morgan-Williams; Smith, Lake, Botha, Beard, AW Jones, R Davies, Tipuric (capt), J Morgan.

Replacements: Baldwin, G Thomas, Henry, Sutton, Morris, Aubrey, K Williams, North.

Comical that one of the biggest rugby club fixtures will be missing so many 6N international players next week. Easy to see why DORs have a lot of SH stalwarts in their squads.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Hurd improved the scrum last time out Vs Ospreys and Richardson had a very good reputation as a scrummager at Championship level, I'm more concerned that if the game opens up neither tends to be overly present in the loose. We're likely to need both props against Saints so getting them minutes makes sense.

Phil Cokanasiga is starting at 12 for Nottingham so hopefully that's a sign he's getting some minutes before coming back into the 23 next weekend.

That's good. Hopefully so.

[Puja]

Argh. Some moments of real quality and elan from Leicester in that first half, but combined with some stupid decisions in the red zone means that we're 13-13 despite dominating the first half. Not helping that Alun-Wyn Jones is taking the piss out of our lineout - poor calling mostly, but Clare's not been hitting double-top either.

Credit to the Ospreys though - their defence has been excellent and, the times that we've broken them, it's been through really good quality play.

Bit annoyed that they didn't let the disallowed Simmons try replay carry on a bit further - clearly held up initially (more great work by Ospreys), but I thought he might have got it down as he rolled and the replays kept cutting off before you could see if he did.

Puja

[Puja]

Balls. No arguments that Ospreys deserved that - defence was immense and they should've had it 5 minutes before they did with two blatant penalty try decisions bottled by the ref (both by Dan Kelly, weirdly enough - hands in front of the line when stopping a pick and go try and high tackle on his try-saver in the corner). We threw away so many scoring opportunities and that intercept try from a loose pass when we were pressing for our own 3rd try was an absolute killer.

Still, it looks like we're building something and we played well, despite managing to lose, so it's not the end of the world.

Puja

[Wallpaperman]

Balls. No arguments that Ospreys deserved that - defence was immense and they should've had it 5 minutes before they did with two blatant penalty try decisions bottled by the ref (both by Dan Kelly, weirdly enough - hands in front of the line when stopping a pick and go try and high tackle on his try-saver in the corner). We threw away so many scoring opportunities and that intercept try from a loose pass when we were pressing for our own 3rd try was an absolute killer.

Still, it looks like we're building something and we played well, despite managing to lose, so it's not the end of the world.

Puja

Some match, both through to the last 16.

[FKAS]

I think only the ref could see that ball on the line, complete horseshit decision. As Puja says Tigers should have sorted that game a long time before that, so many pointless and badly executed grubbers through that just wasted territory and possession. We let Ospreys back into that game time and time again.

I did think the bottling of the penalty try was fair as he bottled a couple in the first half including an absolute stone waller from Owen Williams right in front of the ref that he penalised but oddly didn't go PT.

Felt sorry for Richardson because he didn't commit any offence at that scrum and the ref just panicked and binned him completely unfairly.

[Puja]

I think only the ref could see that ball on the line, complete horseshit decision. As Puja says Tigers should have sorted that game a long time before that, so many pointless and badly executed grubbers through that just wasted territory and possession. We let Ospreys back into that game time and time again.

I did think the bottling of the penalty try was fair as he bottled a couple in the first half including an absolute stone waller from Owen Williams right in front of the ref that he penalised but oddly didn't go PT.

Felt sorry for Richardson because he didn't commit any offence at that scrum and the ref just panicked and binned him completely unfairly.

Oh yeah, the ref wasn't good. Kept getting in the way of passes as well. The Williams one was clear as day, but luckily we scored shortly afterwards, so it all came out in the wash. Agreed on the scrums - I think the ref confused going backwards for a penalty offence on occasions.

It would've been daylight robbery if we had won the game on that though. It was one of those where it was 95% that the try had been scored and to end on that, with the two penalty tries not given, would've been a very sour note. As I calculate it, we're still due a home knockout as long as Munster don't beat Toulouse by >17 points, where both sides score 4 tries, so it's all okay in the end.

Puja

[FKAS]

I think the ref had no real clue what was going on in the scrum to be honest, as you say going backwards tended to mean penalty irrelevant of angle or binding. Overall the ref was ok though obviously a bit green before he lost his head in the last 10 minutes. Hopefully he uses this as a learning experience.

I'm a bit concerned about our regression under Wiggy. This season hadn't been going smooth under Steve but I'd have put money on us doing better in those league games and seeing out the win last night if Steve and Kev were still at the helm. I hope the board are close to appointing the new head coach because it's becoming a matter of urgency, we're still in all competitions but won't be for.much longer if things don't improve.

I'm not looking forward to the East Midlands Derby next weekend, I suspect the speed camera zealots from the lesser county down the way will be feeling pretty confident and I don't think we're going to rain in their parade again.

[Oakboy]

After watching this game I have reservations about Chessum. I've seen too little to make any categorical opinion statements. Was this a sub-par performance?

[p/d]

you just didn't see the unseen work

[Oakboy]

you just didn't see the unseen work

True!