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Leicester Tigers Vs Munster
Date: 26 Aug 2005 — 15.00 — Other Rating: |
Leicester Tigers 50 – 19 Munster
I took the kids to the rugby. It was a pity the performance wasn’t the best because they got really quite into it both of them happily yelling “come on Munster” with their Dad. It was something my Dad and I used to do on a Saturday back in the late 70s when he would take me to see Rosslyn Park in London. You’d think it wasn’t the place perhaps for girls but my daughter was perhaps the most fanatical of all of us!
Total attendance was somewhere over 7,000 and I’d say well over 6,000 of them were Tigers fans. In the clubhouse stand where we were I think there were no more than 10 of us and bearing in mind our group was 5! Still you do your bit and roar approval when appropriate much to the chagrin of the home fans.
It was a friendly so there wasn’t the plethora of stars that Munster could have fielded but Rob Henderson and Johnny O’Conner were on the field though they both had pretty quiet games. Paul Burke the fly half played very well and certainly in defence the Munster line looked solid but we were weak out wide and Leicester are not and it was pretty much from this area that they took most advantage.
It was all pretty even for the first half an hour and we were leading 9-6 at one point and looking decent. The first Leicester try out wide seemed to knock the stuffing out of ‘our brave boys’ and we went in at the half 9-21 down.
It all kind of went downhill from there, Munster were attacking to our end in the second half and I was hoping to get some good shots with the camera but I think they only came down our way twice. Up the other end Leicester were spreading the ball wide and looking more menacing in attack than we were. I guess it is a credit to the Munster tackling which by and large was very good indeed that we didn’t end up down by a score more suited to cricket but in the end it was only in the final minutes when we got a try to bring the scores to 19-50 that even lent it a little respectability. Our defeat was made the worse by Leicester playing recent defectors from Leinster Leo Cullen and Shane Jennings, Cullen in fact scoring a try.
It was a pretty fair result really, we weren’t creative enough and whilst the defence built confidence the attacking lacked any fluidity and we looked rusty and clumsy. The amount of times ‘that crucial pass’ went to ground or knocked on in the line, I lost count in the end. Of course Leicester are dirty bastards in the ruck as ever and they didn’t disappoint in that department, but they seemed to be more alert and more ready for the season.
Bloody hope Declan whips the boys into shape for the Celtic League, they’re going to need more options for it let alone for the Heineken Cup.
[Oh and the picture’s my own work, it was a good shot but underexposed so I pissed about with it and took it the other way making it oversharp and grainy, kind of looks like a newsprint image now which I was pleased with. It looks better in its original form which is bigger but that buggered my gutters up!]
Song Of The Day ~ Stereophonics – Devil
Original Comments:
baracuda made this comment,
I went to see Leinster v Northampton when I was in Dublin last week. Leinster got beaten too, not as badly, but it doesn’t bode well for Irish rugby this season. Without the stars there is very little strength in depth.
-Redbaron responds – I saw Leinster pre-season last year, they usually play Coventry but didn’t this year. I think in the case of this game Leicester had more like a 1st team than Munster did but even so you are right we don’t have the depth and I think that is bourne out by last season’s performance where all the provinces were pretty average.-comment added :: 4th September 2005, 02:55 GMT+01
RED BARON'S WORDS 