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British & Irish Lions player ratings vs Japan | 2021 Lions series
By Ian Cameron
The British & Irish Lions players ratings, brought to you by The Famous Grouse
Steve Borthwick's side were aiming to become the fifth club in the history of European competition to win both the Heineken Champions Cup and the Challenge Cup, but it wasn't to be.
Borthwick captained Bath to Challenge Cup success in the 2008 final against Worcester Warriors and was also on the losing side for the Gallagher Premiership club in the 2003 and 2007 finals. Tigers were the 26th different club to reach the final and ultimately failed to become the 17th name on the trophy.
LEICESTER TIGERS PLAYER RATINGS:
15 FREDDIE STEWARD - 8
The rangey full-back has enjoyed something of a breakout season at Welford Road and was probably Leicester's standout back in the first half.
14 GUY PORTER - NA
Went off following a nasty head clash care of an accidental knee contact, with just 19 minutes played.
13 MATÍAS MORONI - 7
Failed to deal with a remarkably well-taken kick and collect from Vincent Rattez for MHR's first try, but it may have been his only defensive lapse.
12 DAN KELLY - 6
Some huge tackling set the standard in the Tigers midfield. The odd flash but failed to really spark in attack, even if it wasn't that type of game.
11 NEMANI NADOLO - 7.5
Fascinating to see Nadolo go up against his former teammates. Saw precious little ball in the first half and any he did get was scrappy. Was brought closer to the action in the second, deployed as a first receiver off set-piece and was a constant problem for Montpellier to solve.
10 GEORGE FORD - 7
Ford's strategy was clear: kick the leather off the ball whenever it was an option, force and then play off any reception mistakes and maul MHR to death off lineouts. There'd been a lot of hype around Ford's devilish spiral kicks, but for the most part, Montpellier handled the numerous grenades lobbed in their direction. Relentless.
9 RICHARD WIGGLESWORTH - 6
Wigglesworth's inclusion ahead of Ben Youngs raised some eyebrows pre-game but his no-frills service was the sensible accompaniment to Ford's boot-a-thon.
1 ELLIS GENGE - 6
After a huge performance last weekend, the fired-up loosehead gave as good as he got but was kept relatively quiet.
2 TOM YOUNGS (C) - 7
The grizzled brain stem of Leicester's brawny pack, the 34-year-old hooker functioning like a front row version of the erstwhile Leicester back row legend Neil Back, burrowing his way around the back of every Leicester maul.
3 DAN COLE - 6
The veteran tighthead provided a solid platform for Tigers' attack and did his job throughout.
4 HARRY WELLS - 8
Despite both Wells and Green tipping the scale around the 120kg mark, but they looked relatively lithe in comparison to their French opposition. Yet Montpellier struggled to contain Tigers' mauling game, with Wells a central figure. Showed street smarts to force his way over in the 34th minute.
5 CALUM GREEN - 7.5
Hassled and harried Montpellier and he and Wells certainly won their unit battle with the giant Paul Willemse and Florian Verhaeghe.
6 HANRO LIEBENBERG - 5
A relatively low-key performance from the big blindside, which was much more about matching the French in the grunt stakes. Will rue a few errors and the borderline holding-on call care of referee Andrew Brace.
7 CYLE BRINK - NA
A few spills with ball-in-hand, the big South African was injured and replaced by Tommy Reffell after just 28 minutes.
8 JASPER WIESE - 6
Maybe the form forward in the Gallagher Premiership, the boys of the MHR presented a sterner physical test than the average Gallagher Premiership outing. Trucked the ball up aggressively for plenty of metres and was good value for his second-half try, but his ball security let him down more than once.
REPLACEMENTS:
KINI MURIMURIVALU - 7
An early fumble aside. the Fijian was industrious on both sides of the ball, a brilliant 56-minute turnover standing out.
TOMMY REFFELL - 7
Leicester looked more balanced with Reffell on. Brought the turnover nuisance factor.
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Latest Comments
Yeah nar I pretty much agree with that sentiment, wasn't just about the lineout though.
Yeah, I think it's the future of SR, even TRC. Graham above just now posting about how good a night it was with a dbl header of ENGvSA and NZvFrance, and now I don't want to kick SA or Argentina out of TRC but it would be great if in this next of the woods 2 more top teams could come in to create more of these sort of nights (for rugby's appeal). Often Arg and SA and both travel here and you get those games but more often doesn't work out right.
Obviously a long way off but USA and Japan are the obvious two. First thing we need to do is get Eddie Jones kicked out of Japan so they can start improving again and then get a couple of US teams in SRP (even if one its just a US based and augmented Jaguares).
It will start off the whole conferences are crap debate again (which I will continue to argue vehemently against), but imagine a 6 team Pacific conference, Tokyo Sunwolves (drafted from Tokyo JRLO teams), Tokyo All Stars (made up of best remaining foreign players and overseas drafts), ALL Nihon (best of local non Tokyo based talent, inc China/Korea etc, with mainland Japan), a could of West Coast american franchises and perhaps a second self PI driven Hawai'i based team, or Jagaures. So I see a short NFL like 3 or 4 month comp as fitting best, maybe not even a full round, NZvAUSvPAC, all games taking place within a 6hr window. Model for NZ will definitely still require a competitive and funded NPC!
On the Crusaders, I liked last years ending with Grace on the bench (ovbiously form dependent but thats how it ended) and Lio-Willie at 8. I could have Blackadder trying to be a 7 but think balance will be used with him at 6 and Kellow as 7. Scott Barrett is an international 6 sized player. It is just NZ style/model that pushes him into the tight, I reckon he'd be a great loose player, and saders have Strange and Cahill as bigger players (plus that change could draw someone like Darry back). Same with Haig now, hes not grown yet but Barrett hight and been playing 6, now that the Highlanders have only chosen two locks he'll be playing lock, and that is going to change his growth trajectory massively, rather than seeing him grow like an International 6.
Go to commentsDan Carter is the leading points scorer and leading points per game person for a player with significant tests. 2s RWC winner and member of the games greatest ever team. It's not even close. The only question of GOAT for rugby is whether McCaw deserves it given Carter's numbers.
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