Leicester Tigers v Bath Rugby

[Teh Mite]

Leicester Tigers v Bath Rugby

Saturday 23rd October 2010, KO 14:30, Welford Road

​

 

[Duckdee]

The return of Vesty and Moody... oh yeah, just Vesty, then. Both teams coming off HC wins should add to the usual up-for-it-ness.

 

[Teh Mite]

Should be a Tiggers 5 pointer in all honesty, they're hitting good form (plus Flood being fit again really has turned a corner). Bath on the other hand had an expected 5 pointer in Italy and a string of bad games before that.

Tigers to start coming good now.

 

[Duckdee]

I'd like to think so, but I've already thought that once this season. However, as you said, Flood's back this time.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Flood really impressed me on the weekend,
Very strong running with ball in hand, and organised the backs well.
Him and Youngs on top form and linking well together, makes Leicester lethal on the attack

 

[Teh Mite]

After last weekend's European win over the Scarlets, Leicester Tigers retain the same matchday squad for Saturday's return to the Aviva Premiership at home to Bath.

The only changes to the starting line-up are in the front row where Boris Stankovich and Dan Cole start, with Marcos Ayerza and Martin Castrogiovanni reverting to the replacements.

"Tigers against Bath is one of the big traditional rivalries in English rugby and we've had so many big games in all competitions over the years," said Tigers director of rugby Richard Cockerill.

"We had a good win over Scarlets last weekend and now the challenge to the players is to back that up. We want to replicate that intensity and that commitment every week.

"It was great to get Toby Flood and Anthony Allen back from injury last week. They came through it well and their experience is important in the squad.

More to follow...

Form:Leicester Tigers are the only side in the Heineken Cup with maximum points after the first two rounds, however their five encounters in Aviva Premiership have all been won by the home side on the day. Tigers have lost just once at Welford Road since September 2008: to Saracens on 8 May. Bath won 22-6 at Aironi last Saturday, but their only victory in their last three Premiership matches was 31-16 at home to Sale in round four. Bath have won two of their last five away games in the Premiership. Tigers are unbeaten in their last seven clashes with Bath in all competitions, since Bath won 25-21 in the Premiership at The Rec in November 2008. Bath's only previous victory at Welford Road in the Premiership was 13-12 on 29 November 2003.

The teams:

Leicester Tigers: 15 Geordan Murphy (c), 14 Scott Hamilton, 13 Matt Smith, 12 Anthony Allen, 11 Alesana Tuilagi, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Thomas Waldrom, 7 Craig Newby, 6 Tom Croft, 5 George Skivington, 4 Ed Slater, 3 Dan Cole, 2 George Chuter, 1 Boris Stankovich.
Replacements: 16 Joe Duffey, 17 Marcos Ayerza, 18 Martin Castrogiovanni, 19 Steve Mafi, 20 Ben Woods, 21 James Grindal, 22 Billy Twelvetrees, 23 Manu Tuilagi.

Bath: tbc

Date: Saturday, October 23
Venue: Welford Road
Kick-off: 14.30 BST (13.30 GMT)
Referee: Andrew Small

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3823_6460864,00.html

 

[mohamed_ali12]

From bathrugby.com:

Bath Rugby team to face Leicester Tigers
15. Nick Abendanon
14. Matt Carraro
13. Shontayne Hape
12. Olly Barkley
11. Matt Banahan
10. Sam Vesty
9. Michael Claassens
1. David Flatman
2. Pieter Dixon
3. David Wilson
4. Stuart Hooper
5. Ignacio Fernandez-Lobbe
6. Andy Beattie
7. Luke Watson ( C )
8. Simon Taylor
Replacements
16. Ross Batty
17. Nathan Catt
18. Duncan Bell
19. John van der Giessen
20. Ben Skirving
21. Mark McMillan
22. Tom Biggs
23. Jack Cuthbert

 

[Teh Mite]

As strong as Bath could hope for, although I still think they'll be lucky to take anything away from WR (except perhaps a few sore bodies).

 

[mohamed_ali12]

As strong as Bath could hope for, although I still think they'll be lucky to take anything away from WR (except perhaps a few sore bodies).

Agreed, can't really see Bath getting anything out of this, sadly. Especially not considering we're missing Mears, Grewcock, Moody and James which, regardless of what you might think about them, is a whole lot of experience. I'd personally take a losing BP, have a feeling we will get mullered in the scrum and lineout though, the latter really needs to be sorted out if we're going to compete for anything this year.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Should be an interesting battle in the scrum,
Two of the strongest scrums in the premierships (honorable mention to Northampton Saints as well) going head to head.

 

[mohamed_ali12]

Shocking start for Bath:

• long kick by vesty
• letting Tigers get the first points
• Drop by Barkley
• Free kick at the scrum

We seem to have developed a fear of going to WR recently <_<

 

[mohamed_ali12]

******* hell...

 

[cyRil]

What are the letters under the Leicester badges all about? Anyone?

 

[mohamed_ali12]

What are the letters under the Leicester badges all about? Anyone?

was thinking that myself, Murphy has an O and Croft an F though

 

[Teh Mite]

It's a nod to when Leicester used to use letters on the back of the shirts instead of Numbers:

1 A
2 B
3 C
4 D
5 E
6 F
etc

 

[mohamed_ali12]

Great break by Abendanon, made by some smart work from Banahan from a clearance kick nearly charged down by Hooper. Horrific drop from Vesty - positive stuff though

 

[cyRil]

It's a nod to when Leicester used to use letters on the back of the shirts instead of Numbers:

1 A
2 B
3 C
4 D
5 E
6 F
etc

I thought as much. Cheers for the confirmation Mite.

 

[mohamed_ali12]

great effort, sadly no end result. Will take a Losing BP with all things considered. Really proud of the lads today.

 

[Duckdee]

It's a nod to when Leicester used to use letters on the back of the shirts instead of Numbers:

1 A
2 B
3 C
4 D
5 E
6 F
etc

Then 7 H, 8 G, for some reason.

---

I thought that was a good contest. Annoying to see the lineout regressing, and Smith was completely anonymous, his name wasn't mentioned once! Murphy is starting to find his feet after a slow start to the season, and 8-9-10 were impressive, again. I would like to see Duffey play a bit, he can't be any less effective than Chuter.

 

[Teh Mite]

Then 7 H, 8 G, for some reason.

That's because the old Tigers system used to go:

A......B......C

...D......E....

F.....G.......H
.........I.......
..........J......
K...............
....L............
........M.......
..............N.
...O............


Other random facts:
-
- Bristol used to also use letters which were in the reverse order to the Tigers method (except 6=M 7=N & 8=O)
- Bath & Quins (Richmond) never used to have a 13 shirt as it was deemed unlucky, instead making the outside centre=14, Right wing=15 and Fullback=16.
- Until the 1970s, the standard method of shirt numbering was to have the fullback as 1 and the loosehead at 15. Substitutes never wore numbers.
- West Hartlepool still don't use the number 5 in memory of a player who died.
- When Gosforth because Newcastle Falcons around the time of professionalism, they introduced Soccer-style "squad numbers" instead of the positional numbers. This lead to the ruling that all league teams have to have standard 1-15 for positional players as it was too confusing to noobies who were still learning the game. This forced Bristol & Tigers to drop their letters while Bath & Quins had to adopt the 13 shirt.