Leicester head coach Michael Cheika gave his side the “hairdryer, with details” at half-time, according to scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet. Tigers turned round a 19-8 deficit against Gloucester to win 29-26 at Welford Road, and return to third place in the Premiership.
It was another second-half drop-off for Gloucester, who might need to look at whether their 80-minute fitness is matching their new expansive style, although in this case they also had the age-old challenge of turning to face a blustery wind, as well as a Tigers team given the hurry-up by their new Aussie boss.
Leicester attack coach Peter Hewat arrived in unusual circumstances in the summer, appointed by Dan McKellar before the latter left the club, but must have enjoyed a second try in two weeks from a nicely worked, five-metre tapped kick move, finished by Handre Pollard.
Sarries edge battle of concentration
Composure counts at the top level. A cracking Premiership contest between Bristol Bears and Saracens was a “battle of concentration”, as Saracens’ flanker Toby Knight described it.
And while it should not defined by two moments of contrasting composure in added time at the end, they were certainly crucial. Alex Lozowski punched over a pressure penalty for Saracens to win 37-35.
That made it seven successful kicks from seven for the centre who is back in the England squad going to train in Spain this week, hoping for a Test comeback after six years away with Fraser Dingwall out injured and Henry Slade yet to play this season.
The penalty was conceded by Gabriel Ibitoye diving over a ruck to knock the ball out of Gareth Simpson’s hands. Ibitoye was judged off his feet, having earlier been shown a yellow card for tackling Elliot Daly off the ball, which made two blots on the copybook of the Bristol wing who has started the season with scintillating tries and elusive running, while not receiving an England call.
“No-one in the Prem attacks like Bristol,” said Saracens’ boss Mark McCall, but the Bears slipped to fourth, with two home defeats and three away wins, while Sarries are back on top.
Falcons fly once again
At the Stoop, there were plenty of good moments for the England-bound trio of Sam Underhill, Ben Spencer and Marcus Smith as Bath edged a 26-24 win over Harlequins.
Meanwhile on Friday night, Newcastle Falcons were ahead at half-time for the first time in any match since last November, and kept their nerve with focussed defence and well-controlled pick-and-goes to beat Exeter Chiefs 24-18 – a first Premiership win for Newcastle after 581 days and 25 straight league losses since they beat Gloucester in March 2023.
“From Semore Kurdi and the Thompson family who own the club, we will make this business sustainable over the next five years and it’ll be a challenge for teams to beat us,” said Steve Diamond, the Newcastle coach keeping a lid on any raised expectations.
There was a spectacular conversion near the end by Josh Hodge, a special talent in a struggling Exeter team, but could we now be seeing a Premiership relegation battle, rather than one club tailed off as Newcastle were last season?
That scenario requires the winner of the Championship to meet the promotion entry criteria in order to contest the end-of-season play-off with the bottom team in the Premiership. But it’s not looking good for Doncaster Knights, who lost for a third time in five matches, and are ninth out of 12 in the Championship.
Freeman’s move inside should stay an experiment
Northampton Saints fixed their broken attack from the previous week’s loss at Leicester to notch the quickest bonus point of the Premiership season in their 47-17 win over Sale Sharks, whose first half was described as a “horror show” by TV pundit Ben Kay.
The Ireland centre great Brian O’Driscoll was impressed by man of the match Tommy Freeman at outside centre, but didn’t seem convinced by Freeman’s defence and hadn’t forgotten him being skinned by Marcus Smith two weeks ago.
The continuity choice for Borthwick would be to keep Freeman on the wing for the upcoming meeting with New Zealand.
More duds than derbies
Gloucester’s visit to Leicester prompted the ‘Leicester Tigers History’ X account to note this was the home team’s third-longest running fixture this season, after Northampton and Coventry (the latter in the Premiership Cup).
This raises the question that the debate over changing the formats of leagues (British & Irish, Anglo-Welsh, etc) to achieve much sought after “growth” is essentially telling us that are clubs lumbered with fixture lists they don’t want.
Tickets are bought in big numbers at international level while, outside of that, there is a pile of evidence that spectators imbued with rugby’s camaraderie are seduced by certain types and timings and staging of games, arguably irrespective of the competition.
An 80,000-strong crowd rocked up to Croke Park last week for a regular-season URC match between Leinster and Munster, or an “inter-pro” as it was once known.
Three years ago, a chat between i and the then Bristol Bears chief executive Mark Tainton brought this comment: “My biggest thought at the moment is getting the Irish clubs, the Munsters and the Leinsters, to Ashton Gate. Bring all those people to the city. Show off the city to them.”
More recently, we have heard how many fans in Wales would like to see more of the likes of Gloucester, Bristol and Bath, while the Premiership was punting its “Derby Weekend”, and random teams such as Barbarians and the Army and the Navy draw huge crowds, every now and again.
Does our rigid, competition-based season produce a fixture list with too many weak spots, making it a harder sell?
Luck of the Irish?
Speaking of clubs slotted into rigidly defined leagues, a consortium including Formula One owner Eddie Jordan is reported by The Times to be one of three potential bidders to buy London Irish – a “club” which, currently, amounts to a brand and a bid to rejoin the English leagues at the level below the Premiership.
The Rugby Football Union confirmed to i that London Irish made one of the 16 “expressions of interest” to join the revamped Tier 2 next season, alongside clubs in the National Leagues, universities and so-called “phoenix” entities.
What was not clear is whether more than one party connecting themselves to London Irish has done the expressing of the interest.
Ulster bolster Ireland’s offering
Ireland’s strength in depth is evident not only at the URC leaders Leinster, but also at Ulster, who beat a weakened Ospreys 36-12.
The province’s head coach Richie Murphy said they are benefiting from five scrum-halves, with John Cooney and Nathan Doak prominent in this match, and Dave Shanahan also impressing in a couple of substitute appearances this season.
Doak raised a laugh when he said he needed his second-half runaround ahead of a few beers planned by the players for the following day, which seemed to come as a surprise to a smiling Murphy.
On the wing, Jacob Stockdale is showing some of his old Ireland form, and TV pundit and ex-Ulster and Ireland wing Craig Gilroy put this down to Murphy releasing players from the “shell” of two or three years ago.
The bottom-placed Ospreys are targeting a home win against Edinburgh next weekend, with a batch of returning Wales internationals.
Refs speak up
For too long, a frustrating feature of buying a top rugby ticket has been seeing referees chunter away with only a guess at what they are talking about.
The Autumn Nations Series will address this, with referees “on mic” so the crowd can hear explanations of decisions such as the 20-minute red card, the awarding of tries and the outcome of “bunker” adjudications, and possibly communication with captains.
The choice of when to open the microphone will be made by the stadium operations team in response to key moments – rather than the referee, NFL style, making a set gesture or touching a button attached to his kit.
Six Nations, who own and run the autumn series, say the feature will used “as much as feasibly possible”, although spectators in the stadiums will not hear the conversations between the referee and television match official.
