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Gloucester’s Greig Laidlaw kicks 18 points as Leicester slump again | Gloucester’s Greig Laidlaw kicks 18 points as Leicester slump again |
(about 2 hours later) | |
Leicester failed to avoid a third successive Premiership defeat here and it said a lot about their predicament that they gave a debut to a 39-year-old, Brad Thorn. The Tigers could have done with a few roses, having been blooming awful from the start two weeks after a record defeat in another part of the West Country and they will slump to 10th in the table if Sale beat Wasps . | |
The presence of London Welsh means there will be no relegation fears, but the Tigers’ customary place in the top four looks in jeopardy. They have a horribly high number of players who are injured, a number that increased when Mathew Tait left the field dazed 19 minutes in, but it is not only bodies that are absent: so too are virtues that are usually ingrained in anyone who wears the Leicester jersey, such as indefatigability, cussedness and a collective will. | |
The Tigers did stave off a record Premiership defeat to Gloucester, something that looked unlikely at half-time when they trailed 30-9, but that had as much to do with the home side’s inability to remain composed as they tried to lift the pace of the game – the bonus point that should long have been theirs was finally denied them three minutes from time when Charlie Sharples knocked on one metre out after glorious approach play from Rob Cook and James Hook – as any belated hardening of green resolve. | |
What will make the video review all the more galling for the Leicester director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, was that while Bath had been opponents playing close to the peak of their powers, Gloucester were like a faulty switch, sometimes on, more often off, helped on their way by a donation from one of their old boys, Freddie Burns, who after a few years of playing behind beaten packs here and having to hurry his clearance kicks had a distinct sense if deja vu. | |
Burns was meant to have been on the bench, but Seremaia Bai failed a fitness test on a calf muscle injury and the England fly-half started. Leicester, playing against the breeze in the first half, were 9-6 down after 19 minutes and had just lost Tait when Burns gave himself too much time to kick downfield and was charged down by Tom Savage. Burns felt he was held back as he chased the second-row to be the first to the bounce, but the hard-nosed edge associated with the Tigers, the undimmed will to win, was absent, as Gloucester’s second try showed. | |
The prop Nick Wood, making his first appearance of the season, scored the first, supporting Savage on the inside. The second involved a rather longer run by the scorer but it started after Gloucester again won the contest for a loose ball: Robert Barbieri was too easily pushed away by Matt Kvesic after Richard Hibbard’s long throw missed its target, and when the No8 Ben Morgan received possession in an uncongested midfield, he had the time to consider his options before providing Sharples with a long pass. The wing accelerated away from Vereniki Goneva before stepping inside Blaine Scully, who had moved to full-back. | |
Leicester than launched their first real attack of the match, which culminated in OwenWilliams’s third penalty, but Gloucester were soon breaking through a weak defence again, Hook and Cook freeing Jonny May with swift passes. | |
The second period was largely made up of Gloucester handling errors and Leicester scrums. Greig Laidlaw’s fourth penalty was the home side’s only score of the second period and it left the crowd, if hardly disappointed after a hefty victory over a notable opponent, having a sense of anti-climax at the final whistle. Sharples’s knock-on was the worst of a series of blemishes that showed how far Gloucester have to go: for all the performances of Hook, Laidlaw, Morgan, Savage and Cook, the Cherry and Whites remain more individual than collective. | |
Leicester, who lost Goneva to the sin-bin for a dangerous tackle, had the last word when David Mele supported Scully’s break, but it was weaker than a whisper. They have been here before, bottom but one three years ago after losing three in a row at the same stage of the season only to reach the final, and they have signed on loan the Wales second-row Lou Reed from Cardiff Blues. | |
“We will stick together and we will come out on the other side,” said Cockerill. “We face Harlequins on Friday night and it has become a big game. We have a huge number of injuries, but we should have been better organised and, after a decent start, we unravelled after we gave away a try. People need to understand the position we are in and I am confident we will turn things around.” | |
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