Leicester Tigers 43 Worcester Warriors 13: Saracens have something that is ours and we want it back

Leicester Tigers are out of form. Their last two performances, against opposition in the lower half of the table, have been decidedly patchy. Some of the ball handling has been sloppy and the back line have lacked creativity. The highs of the LV= Cup final performance over Saints have not been matched. The only trouble is, this out of form team has scored 84 points in their last two games, chipping in with 11 tries in the process. They have been nowhere near their peak yet have, at the right moments, shown the cutting edge of champions. Yes, the team who lost 6 out of their first 7 games look every bit like champions...

(Source: Daily Mail)

For most of the season Leicester have been making true the old adage that forwards win games and backs decide by how much. No other side in the top 3 leagues in Europe has scored anywhere near as many tries, yet you could legitimately say that for large parts of the season Leicester's backs have been not much more than functional. In defeating Worcester at Welford Road on Friday night they relied upon their forwards - who scored 5 out of the 7 tries - once again to tighten the vice on their opponents until they cracked. The front-row earned as many tries as they scored, the back-row fulfilled their roles perfectly and in the second-row Graham Kitchener was nothing short of immense. The confidence of the team was there for all to see with penalties in front of the posts being turned when they were trailing by 3 points. Sure, they had 14 men, but Worcester were painfully one-dimensional.


Kitchener has had to be patient this season but in the last few weeks he has looked like an international-class lock forward. On Friday he carried hard (27 metres), tackled hard (10 tackles) and made it hard for his old team mates in the lineout (2 steals). Dare I say it, he has the unremitting, no-nonsense approach of a rather more famous Leicester lock. As with so many other players on the fringes of the first XV, if Kitchener can maintain this level of performance then he will soon be forcing Richard Cockerill to put him in the team ahead of experienced internationals.


It is the strength of players like Kitchener in this 2011/12 squad that has propelled Leicester towards the top of the table. Cockerill can arguably change his 1st choice for his 2nd choice in 7 positions now (Cole for Castro; Skivington for Deacon; Kitchener for Parling; Mafi for Croft; Newby for Salvi; Ford for Flood, and; Twelvetrees for Allen) and not be considerably weakened by it. And much like the current Wales team, this is a squad that has years ahead of it. Of the players that finished the game at Worcester, 12 out of the 15 were aged 26 or younger.


Before the game, Richard Hill had described Tevita Taumopeau as, "one of the top three best tight-head scrummagers in the Aviva Premiership," and he can be excused for supporting his own player, Marcos Ayerza dominated the 37-year-old just as Boris Stankovich had done in the return fixture at Sixways. Castro and Cole had equal amounts of joy against Matt Mullan, who looks to be some way off the type of form that would see him picked ahead of last week's scrum-time victim - Alex Corbisiero - for England.


In truth, with 14 men or 15 men have Worcester looked desperately short of the quality needed to get into the Heineken Cup for most of the season. Matt Kvesic and Blair Cowan had good spells on Friday but ultimately Leicester bossed the breakdown: Julian Salvi has been one of the stand-out performers of the season but with the Australian rested this week, the Kiwi Craig Newby stepped in and, not for the first time since his return from serious injury, was totemic. Newby made 19 tackles, which is as many as all of Worcester's back-row combined. The turning down of numerous kicks at goal by the home side early on in the game was embarrassing for the Warriors; it showed that Leicester knew that if they could just score a couple of tries then the game would be theirs.


Leicester knew this and Leicester's fans knew this. Accordingly, there wasn't much atmosphere in Welford Road and the played lack edge, but it is incredibly hard to produce that intensity that pushes a player on in a big game when there is little to contest. Toby Flood played some great rugby against London Irish when the game was tight, but against Worcester the lack of pressure meant that he lacked concentration with his kicking on occasions.


During the World Cup period Leicester's record was P6 W1 D0 L5; after it is P13 W11 D1 L1. Their next two games are as tough as they come - Saints and Quins away - but they are the form team in the country, they've scored more tries than anyone in Europe and they don't even have to play well to win. The rest of the Aviva Premiership should be warned.