WRW WEDNESDAY: SO GOOD IT DOESN'T NEED A HEADLINE
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RUGBY ON TV THIS WEEKEND
DEPTH THAT’S DIFFICULT FOR OPPOSITION TO FATHOM
Full-Back: Steward, Murimurivalu
Wings: Nadolo, Van Wyk, Potter, Simmons
Centres: Kelly, Moroni, Scott, Porter
Fly-Halves: Ford, Henry, McPhillips, Diaz Bonilla
Scrum-halves: Youngs, Wigglesworth, Van Poortvliet, White
Loose-Heads: Genge, Leatigaga, De Bruin, Whitcombe
Hookers: Montoya, Youngs, Clare, Dolly, Kerr
Tight-heads: Cole, Heyes, Leatigaga, Hurd
Locks: Green, Wells, Lavanini, Henderson
6/8: Liebenberg, Wiese, Brink, Chessum, Martin
Opensides: Reffell, Wallace
It isn’t quite the finished article, but Saturday night’s European Challenge Cup win shows how solid the Leicester Tigers squad is these days. Those players highlighted in bold are those starters against Connacht and look at just how much talent there is around NOT in bold.
Three themes stand out for me:
Borthwick has used the last nine months to ruthlessly test and expose his squad to the stresses and strains of Premiership rugby.
There is a generation of talent who we were used to seeing under previous regimes moved elsewhere, eg Lewis, Olowofela and Worth, who have now been sent out on loan; Gigena has moved on and in Hardwick’s case, released in unknown circumstances.
Some relatively new signings, eg Enever, Mamukashvili, Taufua, Lavanini, have been sent back where they came or have moved to France.Including those players who have left, Leicester have used 45 players in the season before this weekend’s quarter-final and yet only 24 have featured in half of the games. That seems a small amount but compare that to the last elongated season.
59 players got to the field while only 12 played in more than half of Premiership and European games. Essentially, Borthwick knows his squad much much better, now.
Recruitment has been top-drawer this season, while still allowing opportunities for young talent to come through.
De Bruin and Montoya (plus Hurd making a promising debut v Connacht) in the front row, with Brink and Wiese behind them in the back row, have been excellent. Wigglesworth is exactly what people expected from him and Moroni is a class act. While Diaz Bonilla has just not had enough opportunities, the recruitment has many more hits than misses.Youth is still on their side.
Connacht are good opposition, perhaps not in the sustained class of Leinster and perhaps Munster but should not be unfairly maligned. Bar 3-4 injuries they were at full-strength.
A Tigers squad despite an average age of 24 and only three players aged 30 or above, beat them and had a desire to win we’ve not seen from a Leicester line-up in some years.
This is a fine squad developing and is now beginning to look more than the sum of its parts.
With an eminently winnable game on Saturday - although remember how confident everyone was before the Premiership win two weeks ago - before Sunday’s open semi-final draw, plus the prospect of seven League matches remaining, read the odds in the Quick Hits section and tell me you’re not excited about the next three months..
STRICTLY BUSINESS
Whether or not you are in the circle of trust, the case of Mike Brown and the manner in which the 35 year-old’s departure has been carried out has raised eyebrows. And it has significant across the sport.
Brown’s opening up to the Daily Mail has confirmed that he is leaving to join Newcastle this summer and is not a happy bunny about it. Dean Richards has doubtless pulled off a nice bit of recruitment, but the focus has been on how Brown was let go despite coming through the Academy and being one of the Premiership’s outstanding full-backs through nearly 250 league appearances.
‘It was one of the worst feelings of my life. I couldn’t get my head around it. It wasn’t like my legs have gone and I can’t get in the team any more. Earlier that week, Gussy had done an interview on the Rugby Pass website saying he wanted to reduce the age of the team. A few days later, I was gone. I never thought it would end that way.’
He adds: ‘People think you just turn up, train, play a game and go home. That’s not how it is. You put so much emotional energy into rugby. It’s your life. When you’re pushed to the side and dismissed, you feel like you’re worthless. I went straight to my car, past Scott Baldwin, who could tell I was distraught. I just sat in the car and cried.
Now the timing of the decision has been muddied by the departure of Paul Gustard. But whether counter-offers were made, this bald point stands out:
‘At this stage of my career and life, it makes no sense to move but I was left with no other option,’ says Brown. ‘I chased the club for weeks about a new contract and, when they finally brought me in for a meeting, it lasted four minutes.
Paul Gustard told me I had no future here and I was staring down the barrel of unemployment. I’m 35, with a family to support and I’ve been with Harlequins since I was 18. There was no, “Thanks for your efforts, we’ll help you with your future”.
I am wary of picking sides in this as those quotes would fly in the face of everything Gustard has stood for in the game. But I’m getting tired of the phrase “Well, rugby is a business now..”
Prior to the pandemic, top-end players have been able to lord it over potential employers during contract negotiations. Maybe that was always the case in other sports, but it has become particularly pronounced in English rugby since the increase of the salary cap, the ongoing arms race with French clubs and on occasions, the Irish provinces; and the emergence of new rivals in Japan.
Players though are now under the thumb. At a time when physical, mental and emotional demands on players are at an all-time high, many of their salaries are now being squeezed and not always in a spirit of co-operation.
It’s not easy to spot the hardening of sentiment on all sides in the wake of the pandemic. Sponsors and TV partners have had the chance to assess what they want from these relationships. Fans have had chance to question how much money they are willing to spend, especially when work is proving hard to find. And of course, players are mightily naffed off how salary cuts have been imposed - with more potentially on the horizon.
And what has been achieved? The clubs continue but what has been preserved has been the current financial structures - shareholdings and in some cases, salaried roles. That is very different from the club not playing rugby, or its role within the wider community.
With salary cuts, advances in sponsorship, season ticket loans and now loans secured by Government, club owners have now had all the help they could wish for.
The players perceive that some owners (and not just in the Midlands) feel they can dictate terms and do not see that the world is changing under their feet. In other words, if we helped you get through the pandemic, what are you going to do for us?
QUICK HITS
So the odds for the rest of the season:
Challenge Cup: (to win, best price): Ulster 5/2 fav, Montpellier 16/5, Leicester 5, Bath 11/2, Northampton/London Irish 9, Newcastle 14, Benetton 100
Premiership (to win, best price); Exeter 6/5 fav, Bristol 9/4, Sale 8,
Leicester/ Northampton/Bath 66, London Irish 150, Wasps 300, Newcastle/Gloucester/Worcester, 1000
5/1 looks a loooooong price, assuming Tigers were to get past Newcastle and win a home semi-final.
Jordan Olowofela gets a start this weekend for Western Force:
Saracens are just spoilsports..
RUNNING FROM DEEP
For Pro 14 fans, this view from experienced South African reporter Brenden Nel on what awaits the top Bok franchises in the Rainbow Cup will make sobering reading:
This isn’t to say that the challenge awaiting SA teams isn’t a tough one – getting used to the new format of competitions, the different travel and the change of seasons in a week before the game will be a new one for teams, while quarantine conditions may well also influence their chances up north.
But as a snapshot at this moment in time, the bigger challenges may be the cash-flush clubs in Europe, and the South African-filled teams like Sale Sharks who are the bigger targets in a long-term battle for supremacy.
Leinster are still a good measuring point for local teams, especially with their suffocation game and their ability to win against any odds. But they currently stand alone in PRO14 terms.
Anyone for Cape Town in December?
More resources are definitely going to be needed to fund the women’s game shortly, with Ireland now considering whether to join England and France as full-time. (Talking to Vicky MacQueen on Saturday, remember only the core of the England squad is FT and the vast majority of Premier 15s players are not.)
While this novel April window is their immediate focus, their main aim this year is to qualify for the next World Cup after their abysmal efforts in the last edition forced them into a repechage.
With Wales seemingly pressing on with plans to dole out contracts to their squad, the Irish team remain part-time amateurs striving to propagate their acknowledged individual excellence within restricted confines.
It remains unclear what the precise future for them may hold but, with a World Cup berth still uncertain and a 2023 summer series in the offing for the women's game, this is yet another watershed moment for the sport here.
And if there was a league new TV investment was definitely required in, it’s the Premier 15s. i paper reports:
The Rugby Football Union is set to announce BT Sport has secured the rights to broadcast the end-of-season showpiece matches in the Premier 15s, i can reveal.
Sources at the RFU and at Premier 15s clubs have confirmed that BT Sport will show highlights of the Premier 15s semi-finals on 22 May, while the final will be shown live seven days later.
While BT Sport will keep the matches behind its paywall on one of its television channels, they will be made available to view online for free.
Back on Friday…
See you then…
Chris
The game has been professional for a number of years. the system is of relatively short term contracts at the end of which there is a renegotiation and a new wage offer that reflects the perceived value of the player to the club which may be down or up on the previous wage. Fans expect the team to improve and are quick to say a player is over the hill or not good enough or condemn a club when a young prospect moves on for game time instead of waiting patiently behind an oldstager. In this environment the one clubman like Brown is becoming a rarity but they should be treasured brought into mentoring of their eventual replacement and the club has a moral obligation to discuss with and guide them in their planning for life when their playing days are over.
Thanks again Chris, agree that our team is now looking better than it has for a long time, onwards and upwards.