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| Tuts' Audio Report | The John Brain Interview | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Christmas Day was
in the past, the Powergen Cup was in the past, today was a walk on the wild
side in the Tiger's lair. The earlier meeting was probably the worst game Worcester has played since promotion to the Premiership. Today gave the team the opportunity to lay that game to rest. However Leicester are without doubt the form side in Europe at this moment. They were showing great respect to Worcester by fielding the biggest and best side available to them. It was now in the hands of Capt. Pat to muster his troops and lead them to victory. |
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A very big ask.
However the two things this team is not short of is determination and
confidence in their own ability. They were going to have to play to the top
of their collective ability to gain anything out of probably the hardest
fixture in our season! "Tuts" was very quickly ensconced in his seat acclimatising to the very cold weather. Tuts was quickly joined by Nicky, with John Brain giving the site a quick inspection along with Andy Keast |
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Both teams took to
the field, working very hard to warm up their bodies, loosening off those
tight ham strings. Rabini, was stretching away. He was favouring his right leg in the warm up, would he be able to last the match?? |
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The Warriors
supporters had turned up in their hundreds, with the Supporters Club running
3 full busses. On good advice from Tigers supporters we had taken our places early, forsaking the opportunity for a beer before the start. The sacrifices we supporters have to make in the name of support!! |
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With two well
turned out "tiggers" wandering the pitch both teams took to the field. The
Warriors taking to the field to great cheers from the visiting fans. As the Tigers entered the stadium almost 16,000 voice lifter as one. Not only are the team THE inform team but the supporters were right there behind their red, white and green heroes. The Warriors had come out with a steely caste to their faces, they were going to give it everything they had, and more |
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James Brown got the
game underway with a great drop-out landing perfectly on the 22 with the
whole Worcester backrow their and competing for the ball. Knock on! Time for
the big boys to meet and test each other out.
For the first time since Saracens we went backwards! The tigers scrum shunted the pack backwards with consummate ease, this was not going to be an easy day up front. Tony Windo, Andre van Neikerk and Chris Horsman had met their match. The first 2/3 scrums were not good but the Worcester front row fought back. Although never getting on top certainly made the Tigers front row work very, very hard |
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The game quickly
started to take shape with Tigers dominating the forward exchanges driving
the Worcester 8 backwards time and time again, then releasing their
lightening quick backs. At this point it was clear The Warriors were going
to have to defend with every last ounce of strength and energy they
possessed. AND they did! they tackled and tackled, they held and slowed down the drives, they denied the Leicester quick ball. The lessons over the last 3 months have been learnt. However we still need to learn how to deceive the ref. We started to conceded penalties |
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From one of these penalties Leicester converted and took a 3 Points lead. 5 Minutes later Tigers set up a concerted attack on the Warriors line. The warriors defended with every weapon on their armoury. In their bid to relieve the pressure Brown took a snap kick which sliced into touch giving Leicester an opportunity to use the power of their forwards with a catch and drive. The ball was taken cleanly at the line and on came the power. Twice the Warriors stopped the forward momentum but Tigers regrouped and applied even more pressure. Off peeled back and over he went for the first try of the game Tigers 10 : 0 Warriors |
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Although Leicester
had gone 10 : 0 up it was not at this stage worrying. The Warriors had held
their shape well and had attacked when the opportunity had arisen. Gradually Worcester Started to win some ball, once again though the ball was very slow in reaching the centers who by this time were flat and those fast lines of running we have come to expect from Gary Trueman were negated completely. We really do need to look at what is going on between No8 and inside center. We have the experts at the club, they must not be blinkered by what used to be, but look at what is actually going wrong. We do not have time to argue it will get better, it has to be better now!! |
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The tigers pack
were driving holes into the Warriors defence, but all credit to the players
as they came back again and again, never giving up the battle to defend
their line. they were showing real steel against a team who were
demonstrably better than they were. Sometimes sheer endeavour and
belligerence can win you the game and Worcester were trying very hard
indeed. It was now 35 minutes played and the score was still 10 : 0, a great achievement and an opportunity to come back and maybe sneak it in the second half. Could the team make it to the break without conceding any more points. the penalty count was down enormously over the last 2 games |
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Worcester were
gaining in confidence by the minute as they kept the tigers at bay. Now it
was time to attack. A great series of drives and phased rugby saw the
Warriors reach deep inside the Tigers 22. Cole took the ball from a ruck
went down the short side when all the players had gone wide realised his
mistake and flicked the ball to the unsuspecting Windo. In Tony's desire to
keep the ball alive he tried to lob it back inside. However it fell straight
into the hands of the Leicester defenders who turned defence into attack in
a split second, sprinting 75 meters to score under the posts. In the next 6 minutes 2 further tries were conceded virtually handing Leicester the game |
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