Bristol v Leicester, Sat, Feb 27th (1pm KO):

[jimKRFC]

Bristol team:
15. Charles Piutau; 14. Luke Morahan, 13. Piers O’Conor, 12. Alapati Leiua, 11. Siva Naulago; 10. Ioan Lloyd, 9. Andy Uren; 1. Jake Woolmore, 2. Will Capon, 3. John Afoa, 4. Chris Vui, 5. Joe Joyce, 6. Steven Luatua (c), 7. Dan Thomas, 8. Jake Heenan.

Subs: 16. George Kloska, 17. Yann Thomas, 28. Jake Armstrong, 19. Ed Holmes, 20. Fitz Harding, 21. Tom Kessell, 22. Tiff Eden, 23. Niyi Adeolokun.

Unavailable: Harry Thacker, Bryan Byrne, Kyle Sinckler, Max Lahiff, Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Dave Attwood, Ben Earl, James Dun, Nathan Hughes, Harry Randall, Chris Cook, Callum Sheedy, Max Malins, Sam Bedlow, Semi Radradra, Siale Piutau, Henry Purdy.

The "unavailable XV" looking better in a lot of places than the starting XV! After a few weeks of dodgy performances Bristol could do with a solid, 80 minute performance, and a win. Had hoped to see anyone but Armstron on the bench so expect the scrum to go pieces when he gets on...

Leicester:
15 Kini Murimurivalu [9], 14 Kobus Van Wyk [6], 13 Matías Moroni [5], 12 Dan Kelly [7], 11 Guy Porter [10], 10 Joaquín Díaz Bonilla [4], 9 Jack Van Poortvliet [11],
1 Nephi Leatigaga [38], 2 Tom Youngs (c) [203], 3 Joe Heyes [56], 4 Cameron Henderson [7], 5 Tomás Lavanini [25], 6 Harry Wells [109], 7 Tommy Reffell [35], 8 Ollie Chessum [4]

Replacements
16 Charlie Clare [19], 17 James Whitcombe [1], 18 Dan Cole [251], 19 Calum Green [50], 20 Luke Wallace [10], 21 Ben White [68], 22 Johnny McPhillips [12], 23 Harry Simmons [24]

A lot of changes for Leicester.

[fivepointer]

Bris are missing a lot of players but can still call upon some of their better ones to start. Bench does look a little light.

Tigers appear to be improving so its quite a tricky game to call.

van Poortvliet looks a very good prospect. Might be one to watch.

[Puja]

Welp, looks like we're waving the white flag here and concentrating on other games. Resting Steward, Taute, Scott, Henry, Wigglesworth, De Bruin, Montoya, Brink, and Liebenberg from the XXIII entirely and Cole and Green from the starting XV.

Having said that, could be interesting to watch - JVP is better than Wigglesworth IMO, and Kelly is an exciting talent. Bristol will easily overpower that side, but it's a lot stronger than recent Tigers 2nd XVs have been.

Puja

[jimKRFC]

Bristol will easily overpower that side, but it's a lot stronger than recent Tigers 2nd XVs have been.

Yeah, that was said about L.I as well - forgive me if I don't quite beleive it...

[Puja]

Bristol will easily overpower that side, but it's a lot stronger than recent Tigers 2nd XVs have been.

Yeah, that was said about L.I as well - forgive me if I don't quite beleive it...

The difference is that you were playing their first XV and they were going for you. We have rotated nearly the entire team and rested almost all of our best players - we've given up before the game even starts. You'll be fine.

Puja

[FKAS]

Tigers unavailable/unselected XV

Genge, Montoya, de Bruin
Martin, Liebenburg
Brink, Weise, Smith
Youngs, Ford
Scott, Taute
Nadolo, Steward, Potter

Could do with a few of them for tomorrow.

I have a nasty feeling the Tigers backrow is going to get taken to the cleaners. Unless there's a downpour and our let's play four locks policy suddenly becomes very effective in a tight game that is.

[jimKRFC]

The unavailable sides would make for a pretty game!

Bristol unavailable XV:
1. Max Lahiff, 2. Bryan Byrne, 3. Kyle Sinckler, 4. Dave Attwood, 5. James Dun, 6. Ben Earl, 7. Harry Thacker, 8. Nathan Hughes
9. Harry Randall, 10.Callum Sheedy, 11. Henry Purdy, 12. Siale Piutau, 13. Semi Radradra, 14. Chris Cook, 15. Max Malins

Subs: Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Sam Bedlow,

[FKAS]

14-3 to Bristol at half time. Bristol lead 9-8 on the penalty front. All Bristol's points scored during a slightly harsh yellow card which was given by a TMO who insisted repeatedly and I'm not sure the ref actually watched the replay.

Reffell and his turnovers probably the only reason Tigers are still in this though Bonilla missed two penalties which could have meant Tigers were 9-0 up. Bonilla's kicking has been significantly inferior to that of Lloyd's.

[FKAS]

TMO bizzarely falls asleep for the fairly blatant Bristol knock on and young Christophe refuses to review despite awarding a knock on as to whether it's deliberate. Youngs questions and ref says "I don't know" but still refuses to use the TMO, it's not like that's what she's fucking there for or anything. She was quite happy to openly question his decision later in the half so he had to repeat himself several times so she'd shut up.

Tigers wasted a shed load of chances, a mixture of poor options and just boring predictable back play. Bristol maul defence very good and they capitalised on the first half yellow card.

[Puja]

Bonilla sucking and costing us points and momentum? Surely not!

I'm quite pleased with 17-3. Must've been a good show from our reserves and suggests good depth.

FKAS - how did Kelly and JVP go?

Puja

[FKAS]

For the young guys;

JVP was solid, no mistakes but nothing eye catching. Box kicking was good in range and accuracy, passing crisp. Didn't really challenge the Bears defence ball in hand though.

Kelly isn't a 12. Got hammered on the crash ball, defended well and ball not in a crash ball situation and he's got something about him. To be fair on the crash balls the moves were telegraphed and he got stopped on the gain line as opposed to being driven back. Considering his age looked perfectly comfortable.

Chessum did well at the base of the scrum and got around well. He's a unit. Couple of decent carries but needed more of that really we were obviously lacking a natural focus point for carrying. If he'd made those carries from the row with Weise at 8 that'd be a good addition as a secondary carrier.

Reffell our best player by a mile. Turnovers for fun. Kept us in it during Bears purple patch.

Whitcombe off the bench for 30 mins of game time and he carried well in the tight and held his own in the scrum. At his age he shouldn't look that comfortable at this level though I think he came on as soon as Afoa went off.

Porter was excellent, work rate off the charts. Very busy in defence and attack.

Henderson bit quiet, knocked on under no pressure and at the end rolled over the line allowing himself to be held up.

McPhillips provided us with an actual kicker and I think he had about half an hour. He's not a Prem level flyhalf ball in hand.

White and Simmons both looked lively off the bench.

[Tigersman]

Moroni for me was on par with Reffell

[fivepointer]

Encouraging stuff from Tigers. They largely defended very well and came back into the game strongly in the 2nd half. Thought Chessum was very good and Whitcombe did well off the bench (not up against Afoa though).
Bris just arent quite clicking. Some of their build up play was very good but final pass/offload just not coming off. They should have done more with the possession/territory they enjoyed in the 1st half.

[FKAS]

Moroni for me was on par with Reffell

Defensively he's immense, he's obviously our defensive leader as well. I want him on the ball in attack more though. He's the man that can get an offload away or offer a spark. He just didn't quite hit his straps in defence for me where as Reffell had a couple of good carries.

[jimKRFC]

We'll another poor performance and way too many penalties given away. Thought we'd get a yellow when Leicester where camped in our 5.

Great effort from Leicester and certainly no push overs!

Interesting commentary from Lahiff though!

[fivepointer]

Lahiff was good fun. The way he described Afoa as having an "antique frame" made me chuckle.

[FKAS]

We'll another poor performance and way too many penalties given away. Thought we'd get a yellow when Leicester where camped in our 5.

Great effort from Leicester and certainly no push overs!

Interesting commentary from Lahiff though!

Considering Tigers got a warning in the first half I thought Bristol were starting to push their luck but the ref was pretty lenient with the home side. At the end of the day you play to the ref and if he isn't handing out warnings then you play to the limit.

Lahiff was a very different commentator to the norm. I think he got told to dial down the Bristol love in at half time because there was no attempt to disguise who he was supporting. He did offer some very interesting insights in what Bristol had been working on before the game and that they had researched who the Tigers youngsters were. For instance he clearly knew a lot more about Chessum than the BT commentator did and it's not like they'll have played together or against each other much if at all previously. Shame Tigers couldn't have provided Zach Henry as a third commentator because that could have been quite funny.