Geoff Parling: English teams with their ‘best players’ can go toe-to-toe with better-resourced French giants
Leicester Tigers head coach Geoff Parling and forward Hanro Liebenberg.
Geoff Parling and Hanro Liebenberg faced the post-match questions at Stade Chaban-Delmas with the honesty of two men who understood precisely where the afternoon had been lost.
“We are incredibly frustrated,” Parling began. “We always knew it was going to be an incredibly tough test. They are the champions, they are the number one seeds, but I think that period between 20 and 40 minutes, we let the game get away from us. We got into a loop and struggled to get back out of it, which is incredibly frustrating. If I split the game into quarters, the first quarter was three-nil to them, the third quarter we won 14-10. That second quarter, we just almost looked like we were waiting for answers instead of going back to doing our basics really well.”
Liebenberg was equally direct about the nature of the damage after the 64-14 defeat.
“In that first half, we had seven possessions in their half and we turned the ball over seven times. We do not want to be that loose, because that feeds into their game. It fed exactly what they wanted. It was a big lesson for us today that we can never, ever let go of the fundamentals of our game,” he said.
Basics key
Asked whether he felt Leicester had played badly, Parling was careful to distinguish between phases.
“Not for the first 20 minutes of the second half, no,” he said. “But when we have looked at our season so far, people can tell me we are moving the ball well, and we have been. But I said that should never be at the expense of our basics, our set-piece and our collision in defence.”
The Bordeaux occasion itself drew genuine admiration from Liebenberg, who added: “The heat was one thing. This week it was probably not more than 10 degrees in Leicester, so it was definitely a factor. But it is an awesome place to come and play. The atmosphere is unbelievable. After the game I just sat there for a few minutes taking it in. It is an amazing place to come to, and with that comes a challenge as well. As Geoff said, we were a bit loose at times, losing the ball, and a team like this, if you give them that many opportunities, they are going to punish you.”
Parling acknowledged the difference in environment without reaching for it as a crutch.
“The Bordeaux stadium experience is incredible,” he explained. “I spoke to one of their coaches and he said they actually could have taken their knockout games to a bigger football stadium but chose to keep it here because of the atmosphere. But that is certainly not an excuse for us. Our expectation, no matter who we are playing, would be that we turn up and perform better than we did today. Of course, the resources they have, the crowd they have, the support they have is excellent. It is different.”
On the question of the gap between the top of French rugby and the top of English rugby, Parling gave a measured, considered answer.
“If the best English teams have their best players available, they can go toe to toe and it will be a very even contest. I think the depth of squad and the resources they have, that is where it is different,” he said.
Parling was particularly struck by what Bordeaux’s offloading game revealed about the conditions they had created for themselves.
“They had 11 offloads in the first 30 minutes. I do not know the final total but it was nearly 30 maybe? The average in the Premiership is just under nine per game. You can only offload if you win the initial collision. You can only do that if you are on the front foot, and we were not winning those initial collisions. After that, we were chasing our tails.”
Liebenberg agreed, saying: “If you give that backline space and opportunity to offload, you are always going to be on the back foot. We knew that, but dealing with it was another matter.”
Genuine respect
Parling finished with a line that carried genuine respect for their Investec Champions Cup opponents.
“You saw a team that is really sure of their identity, and it has been building over a number of years at Bordeaux. You saw the best of that today,” Parling said as the focus now shifts to the Prem.
“It does not change our attitude, how we prepare or how we perform. We will double down on our basics at the back end of this week and give the lads a bit of a refresh over the weekend. We have a choice now. We have got six, seven or eight Premiership games with this group. It is up to us to make sure that really means something.”
Liebenberg echoed the intent, saying: “Today was a bit of a setback, but I do not think it changes anything in our approach. We have built some good momentum and we should go on with that.”
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