Leicester Tigers derby atmosphere blows away AFL coach
Leicester head coach Michael Cheika felt his players thrived in the intense atmosphere of his first East Midlands derby as the Tigers beat Northampton 24-8 at Mattioli Woods Welford Road.
Leicester have now won three of their four games in the Gallagher Premiership under Cheika, who was back in the stands after being suspended for their victory at Newcastle last week.
A raucous home crowd was fired up by a fourth-minute try from Freddie Steward as well as some determined defence as champions Northampton were thwarted in attack time and again.
Cheika said: “I actually have the coach of (Australian rules football team) Richmond AFL here visiting.
“It’s his first game of rugby live and he said to me after the game, ‘What about the atmosphere?’
“It was amazing, what was happening around the intensity that it builds and I think we really wanted to try and get our crowd involved early.
“Scoring the try early on helped us to get our crowd in the game, that’s a weapon for you at home and you should use it.
“I don’t think we used it well enough against Bath in the first (home) game, but now I suppose we’re acclimatising to some new things and we’re able to get the crowd in the game more.
“I feel like the defence is a good base for us, that will stop you from losing games, you can stay in matches like that and that’s a good foundation to have.”
Leicester scored the only try of the first half through Steward as they led 10-3 at the break, with Handre Pollard and Fin Smith kicking penalties.
The hosts then powered clear in the second half with tries from Olly Cracknell and Ollie Chessum before Tommy Freeman ran in a last-minute consolation for Northampton.
Northampton director of rugby Phil Dowson said: “We were frustrated by a very good Leicester defence and we didn’t manage to convert the pressure that we did create.
“We didn’t get the ball over the line twice and then three times held up, so that was frustrating.
“(You can put that down to) very good defence and potentially us not being quite on our game in terms of our attack and that’s sometimes the way that it rolls.
“We have to be better in those spaces and we’ll go away and look at that and make sure we are better at converting pressure into points.
“I don’t know if (the England training camp) was a factor that was the differential between winning and losing.
“It was obviously a disrupted week, but it was disrupted for other clubs as well. We knew it was going to be disrupted, we planned for that and we tried to make the best of it.”
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Who would you have played at 10 with Richie Mo'unga gone and Fergus Burke not available till late in the season ? Scott Barrett hardly played, Sam Whitelock was overseas. There were injuries amongst the replacements. The fairy story that Robertson would have won in this situation is a exactly that a fairy story. We went within a whisker of getting in the play offs late in the season, because we had Fergus Burke, Blackadder others back. Codie Taylor made a big impact when he came back from his sabbatical. Hopefully he will be the captain next year, Codie has had a great season since returning to the Crusaders and for the All Blacks.
Go to commentsEarned a 9.5 with top game overall though Tk while Italians were allowed to crowd breakdown without penalty often. We do have Love with two tries in 4 Test 😎minutes on field!
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