Analysis: Where Leicester tested Wasps
Our resident analyst examines where Leicester Tigers so nearly got it right towards the end of a traumatic season.
Leicester Tigers had an interesting campaign – look at their Champions Cup campaign and you’d argue that it was a disaster.
They also lost eight games in the league, about par for their past three seasons, losing to Wasps x2, Sale, Saracens x2, Exeter x2, and Bath.
Including all competitions, and play-offs, they actually lost to Saracens and Wasps three times each. It’s clear that although they were consistent enough against the lesser teams to keep the top four in sight, they really struggled against the best.
However, it’s important to remember that the Tigers achieved their goal. They reached the play-offs and they turned around a season which had the potential to be a disaster.
Once there, they managed to overcome what appeared to be a huge mismatch and create a brilliantly exciting match against the Wasps. With that in mind, we’ll look at the Wasps match and see how they were able to exploit weaknesses and bring parity to the game. With the sun glowing on the British Isles, it doesn’t seem like a day for negativity.
Attack
The attack has been something of a weakness for the Tigers for the last three years. Although they have kept pace with the rest of the league, they have lagged behind the top four. It’s improved though, back in the 2014/15 season they scored just 37 tries, a season when they got to play London Welsh twice.
Wasps have many defensive frailties, which is to be expected from the leakiest defence of the top seven teams. Leicester exploited these by, really simply, running directly at the weak links.
Peter Betham had a storming day, better than the entire Wasps’ back three combined. A lot of this was because he had the chance to run at Christian Wade all day, especially with the Tigers willing to put width on the ball.
Targeting Wade was a consistent source of yardage for the Tigers. In the above example, they have the option of moving the ball through the hands, but instead opt for a miss pass and a running Ellis Genge to put a hole through Wade.
The winger does well, but it’s not that surprising that he wasn’t able to put his mark on the game given his increased defensive duties.
Even when they weren’t running at him, they were trying to take advantage of him. In the above example, the Betham try, he has come so far out of the line that Freddie Burns just needs to pick the pass either just in front of him, or over the top, as he does, for an easy try.
Wade didn’t miss a tackle, but he was a weak point and the entire Tigers team made it their duty to make the most of that.
The other weak link was Danny Cipriani. The fly-half only missed one tackle all game, but no Wasps back was asked to make more tackles than his eight.
Luke Hamilton angles his run across the pitch, something we tell kids not to do, but he does it because he wants to make Joe Launchbury’s tackle as hard as possible, and secondly because he wants to make sure he can land a hit on Cipriani.
Wasps were keen to leave Cipriani in a key defensive position at the lineout and the Tigers realised this. In the above example, Owen Williams runs a Jamie Roberts-esque crash ball straight down the throat of Cipriani.
Unfortunately, the English fly-half is being supported by Tommy Taylor and so the damage that can be done is minimal. Nonetheless, it’s clear where Tiger’s attacking priorities lay. No weakness was left unattacked.
When the Tigers couldn’t attack specific players, they were able to punish poor kicks from the Wasps. Telusa Veainu had a wonderful day at full-back for Leicester, he had by the far the most metres made of any player in the game and contributed almost a third of all yardage for his side.
In the below examples, he uses sharp footwork to get the away side out of a potential difficult spot. This break sets up the following example where Ben Youngs is able to exploit a gap caused by the broken field play.
Veainu was a constant concern whenever he was kicked too and he was able to keep them in the game thanks to his returns. If Veainu continues to improve, and limits the opposition kicking game, he will be a great asset to assist the exceptionally strong Tigers defence.
Conclusion
Irrespective of the final positions, this has been a really tough season for the Leicester Tigers. Defence coach, Scott Hansen was the first to be shown the door after a disappointing, and fundamentally weak start to the season. He was followed in the New Year by Richard Cockerill, who had been head coach for the past eight years.
For many young Tigers fans, he was the only figurehead at the club they had known, and his sacking left a poor football like taste in the mouth. Incredibly, the firings weren’t done, and Aaron Mauger, was the next to be shown the Welford road door with his box of personal items before the season was through.
New man, Matt O’Connor faces a huge challenge, not only does he have to right a listing Leicester ship, and quickly, he also has to deal with some high powered departures. Freddie Burns will be passing George Ford on the motorway as the fly-halves switch sides. Heading down towards the West Country are Fraser Balmain and Owen Williams, both to Gloucester. Owen Williams will be an enormous loss, injuries have curtailed his Tigers career, but he’s versatile and has a quality kick on him, any team would be sad to see him go, and more importantly, would struggle to replace him.
O’Connor now needs to ensure that he fills these holes and restocks the team’s attacking shelf. The Tigers are the second best defensive team in the Premiership, although some way behind Saracens, but they give nine points away to Exeter in try bonuses. If they can get some more bonus points that way, then their path to the top four is much more straightforward and it allows them to focus more energy on Europe.
Lions Implications
Ben Young’s loss to the Lions is significant. The scrum half, by my reckoning, was unlikely to make the Test side but his probing style would’ve at least provided an alternative option for some of the games.
We’ve seen before that the Kiwis are weakest in their fringe defence, something that Argentina were able to exploit. Whoever does end up starting the first Test could do much worse than watching Ben Youngs and seeing how he tests the guards and bodyguards of the opposition.