It is easy to forget, amid all the tries and sunshine, that rugby has a darker side too: a wet, windy, deafening ferocity that not even the most twinkle-toed can transcend. And they practically invented it here. This is not the first time Leicester have welcomed their beloved neighbours to the lair as champions and disabused them of any notions of grandeur.
It took the Tigers 40 minutes to whip themselves into the necessary fervour, but when they did, all else followed: the rocking stadium at capacity, the win, the bonus point, the obliterated opposition. It’s rustic, I know it is. But I wouldn’t change it for the world.” It was not just the 40 minutes of directionless fumbling by the home team, but a mass fracas with a number of those visiting friends, which spilled into the stand, that sparked them into life, pretty much from the moment they re-emerged from the break.
The second-half Tigers showed the first-half version how a lineout and drive is executed, when Jamie Blamire scored their first try within four minutes of the restart. That earned them a one-point lead and normal service was resumed. Half-time’s highlights analysis probably centred on that, well, we can’t really call them fights these days – this is the age of the camera, after all – but certainly pushing and shoving long after the referee had brought the first half to a close.
There were Alex Coles and Freddie Steward at each other’s throats. On it went, up the steps of the Crumbie Stand, where Henry Pollock, obviously, seemed more interested in tying his shoelace than getting in for an orange. Ollie Chessum and Steward, his England teammates, did not find it funny, shoving him all the way to the changing room.
It’s just push and shove and talk crap. That happens every derby. So I don’t think that had any impact.
It’s not as if anyone got filled in. Well, you just can’t any more.” Such discord was in keeping with a first half in which neither side could quite find their feet on the slippery turf. Saints seemed more in tune with the kind of rugby that has prevailed before the rains came.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
