Leicester Tigers 30 Northampton Saints 25: A derby to remember

With the swing of another Tuilagi arm at Chris Ashton’s head on Saturday, Leicester Tigers fans forgot their bottom-of-the-table woes and felt themselves thrust back to their rightful position as one of the Premiership’s big boys, tussling with fellow heavyweights for supremacy. A Samoan right hook smashed those memories of excruciating World Cup weeks, which now lie dormant in the mind. The club can chalk them up as ‘lessons learnt’ for four years time.

Source: Getty Images (courtesy of Daily Mail)

The only trouble is, Alex Tuilagi’s swinging arm didn’t happen. Neither did Tom Wood’s. But for Leicester, that doesn’t matter. Wayne Barnes’ red cards reset the clock back to last year’s Premiership semi-final at Welford Road as if to say, ‘As you were, gentlemen.’

This was one of the best East Midlands derbies of the professional era. The ingredients were all present: two evenly matched teams, world-class players, a full-capacity crowd and some old scores to settle. The way in which Horacio Agulla mimicked Ashton’s splash-dive for the winning score makes you think that this is a rivalry that will be resurfacing come the return leg at Franklin’s Gardens in April.

In truth, the red cards forced a wonderfully contrasting style of play upon both teams. Leicester were much stronger bludgeoning through the pack and managed to build multiple phases; Northampton, without an openside flanker, counter-attacked ferociously from all over the pitch and found space time and time again. If you subscribe to the view that forwards win matches, then the red cards were a blessing for the home team.

It was disheartening to see the rational and logical thoughts in Wayne Barnes’ head overcome by the emotion of the occasion in making a decision on the fracas. Barnes is usually one of the most balanced referees in the Premiership and he and his assistant were both no more than 5m from the incident, but in the heat of the moment both appeared to imagine a repeat of last season’s fight, rather than register what was actually in front of them. Barnes would have been aware that to miss a Tuilagi punching Ashton again would have severely damaged his reputation. Not only were two players sent off wrongly, but Geordan Murphy and Courtney Lawes were arguably wrongly kept on the field for their parts in the incident.

Superiority in the set-piece seemed to change throughout the match but, despite some ferocious tackling from Lawes and Samu Manoa, Leicester bossed the breakdown as they did against Gloucester and Ulster. Julian Salvi’s performance was immense yet again with more tackles than any other Leicester player in any game this season. Though it is still awkward to see Lewis Moody in a Bath shirt, there can be no doubt that in effectively swapping openside flankers, Leicester have ended up in a far better position.

And with another all-action performance from Thomas Waldrom – in which he kept up his record of making more than 50 metres with the ball in every game he has started this season – it is becoming clear that the Kiwi No.8 and the Wallaby No.7 are now absolutely fundamental to Leicester’s success.

The positive for Richard Cockerill going into the double header against Clermont Auvergne is that he has players all over the pitch who are currently producing moments of match-winning brilliance: Matt Smith giving Ashton a 15m piggy-back ride to the corner to score, Ben Youngs patiently picking the right moments to use his searing pace to break, Ed Slater’s equisite drawing in of defenders for the winning try and Steve Mafi breaking through 4 tackles at one end to score, then later sprinting 40m to catch the rapid Tom May from a certain try.

It was a peculiar game: Leicester conceded 3 tries, missed over 40% of their kicks at goal, were turned over 12 times and missed 14 tackles, and yet, this can be viewed as their best result of the season.

Leicester return to the Heineken Cup on Saturday for an eagerly-awaited trip to play Clermont Auvergne. Here’s what to look out for:

The return of Manu?

Cockerill has a crucial selection decision to make with the likely return of Manu Tuilagi. Matt Smith has performed admirably in his absence and has been a significant factor in some of Leicester’s recent victories, but can Cockerill leave the future of English rugby and his greatest match-winner on the bench?

Keeping Clermont at bay

The last time these two teams met at the Stade Marcel Michelin stadium almost exactly 2 years ago they were torn apart and only through a minor miracle did they nearly snatch two bonus points in a 30-40 loss. Leicester have had several occasions recently where they have lost control of games for significant periods of time. If they do this against a side with a devastating back-line that includes Morgan Parra, Sitiveni Sivivatu, Aurelien Rougerie and Lee Byrne, they could find themselves out of sight. Clermont average over 25 points per game.

It's a squad game

Leicester don’t appear to currently have is a fully trusted set of replacements. The customary change of Dan Cole and Martin Castrogiovanni is the only impact substitution regularly used by Richard Cockerill whilst a game is still to play for. Against Northampton, the opposition’s wholesale changes in the front-row and at half-back nearly won the game; Clermont Auvergne will have even more strength on the bench. The players at the heart of Cockerill’s pack – Ayerza, Chuter, Deacon, Salvi, Waldrom – are all racking up a lot of minutes in attritional games and Leicester’s Director of Rugby may need to show more faith in his replacements to get through this double header.