Steve Borthwick proud as Leicester continue winning run

Planet Rugby

Leicester head coach Steve Borthwick was delighted after his side started their Champions Cup campaign with a 16-13 victory over Bordeaux-Begles on Saturday.

The Tigers have now won 13 competitive matches on the spin, with this triumph seeing them battle past the Top 14 leaders thanks to a late George Ford penalty.

“I’m proud of these players,” said Borthwick after the away triumph.

“When Bordeaux kicked the ball into the corner at the end, I thought, ‘regardless of what the outcome is, I’m proud of the players’. They came here to Bordeaux and had a real go.

Courage to play

“They had the courage to play a little bit different and the courage to have a go.

“Bordeaux are a brilliant team, with threats all around the park. We wanted to challenge them in a different way so that they’d have to think a little bit differently.

“There’s a lot of potential to be a good team. They’ve got an attitude in wanting to get better and, from my point of view, it’s a pleasure to coach them.”

Ford kicked 11 points for Leicester with Guy Porter scoring their only try, while Jean-Baptiste Dubie touched down for Bordeaux as Maxime Lucu added eight points.

Bordeaux second-row Kane Douglas was sent to the sin bin for a swinging arm early on and the Tigers took advantage with Porter touching down after a Bryce Hegarty break.

After laying siege to the Bordeaux try line, Ford opted for a cross-kick, but Hosea Saumaki ended up taking Nans Ducuing out in the air. Referee Andrew Brace was left no option but to show Saumaki a yellow card.

After a period of sustained pressure, Bordeaux centre Moram Falatea-Moefana carried forward, before executing a perfect offload to put Dubie over for the try. Lucu added the extras meaning the scores were level at 10-10 at half-time.

With four minutes left on the clock, Ford knocked over a penalty from 45 metres out to put the Tigers back in front.

Bordeaux turned down a kickable penalty to level the scores at the last play of the game, but they refused to accept the draw and went for the corner. But after a few powerful carries, they were penalised with Leicester coming out on top.

Despite the Tigers’ impressive run of form, Borthwick insisted he would not be getting carried away.

“From my perspective I don’t think too much about what’s happened in the past,” he said.

“All I’m really concentrating on is what can we do to get better after this game – and we’ll continue with that.

“If you start thinking too much about what happened in the past you can get stuck there and maybe that’s what Leicester Tigers did as a club.

“We’ll take lessons from this, enjoy this, and then we’ve got a Sunday game coming up against Connacht at Welford Road.”

Lingering frustrations for Leinster despite comfortable win

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen believes there is plenty of room for improvement after their 45-20 victory over Bath in their Champions Cup opener in Dublin.

With seven tries securing the bonus point – Jamison Gibson-Park crossing for two and star of the match Tadhg Furlong one – the home side were rampant early on.

However, a converted Gabriel Hamer-Webb meant Bath outscored Leinster during the final quarter and this was a source of frustration for Cullen at the whistle.

“The last 20 minutes is probably the thing that is lingering a little bit for us, in terms of some frustrations. Because ultimately Bath win that last 20-minute period 7-0,” Cullen said.

“If you had given it (the result) to us earlier in the week, we probably would have settled for it. For now it’s just trying to turn the page, because we’ve a short turnaround into Montpellier away next weekend.”