Lots of hard work before Tigers are roaring

LEICESTER Tigers head coach Steve Borthwick said there was “plenty of work left to do” after beating Brive 39-17 in the European Challenge Cup at Welford Road.

Tries from Tom and Ben Youngs, Cyle Brink and Nemani Nadolo ensured Tigers took maximum points as they stuck to their game plan and eventually the French visitors crumbled.

“I’m pleased the players got their rewards in the last 15/20 minutes, and sometimes games are like that,” said Borthwick.

“Sometimes you’re going toe to toe with an opposition and then you get your opportunities late, so I’m pleased the players did stick at it.

“I’m pleased they did get those rewards and then were good enough to take them. I think that shows some real positive development.

“In the first 20 minutes, too many penalties were conceded and through that first period of the game we had our opportunities in our attack, but we didn’t play tactically as well as we could, so there were opportunities and we didn’t take them.

“But at that point in time, the opposition were fresh, the opposition were in the battle and throughout the game we were able to ground them down and take the opportunities at the end.”

Returning England trio Ellis Genge, Ben Youngs and George Ford were introduced early in the second half and all made a big impact.

Genge was destructive with his ball carrying and scrummaging while Ben Youngs ran in a try and Ford pulled the attacking strings.

But Borthwick, right, preferred to place the focus on some new members of his squad who featured on Friday night. We’re in a project here where we are reshaping this squad, we are reshaping this team and we’re trying to head in a very clear direction of how we’re going to play, how we’re going to train, how we’re going to be.

“Matias Moroni and Luan De Bruin played their first games for Leicester Tigers. Díaz Bonilla had his first start for Leicester Tigers, and the combinations therefore need a lot of work.

“Tomas Lavanini returning from injury and you see that there’s plenty of work we need to do in terms of the relationships, in terms of those combinations of players.

“I’m pleased that we’ve got the squad together, pretty much for the first time.

“Now there’s a lot of hard work to be done about bringing it together and getting them familiar with each other.”

The build-up to the Brive game was the first time Borthwick had a full week of preparations with his England players and his new signings.

“None of this is ideal now,” he said. “There’s people who have gone through some very tough times through this last year, so I don’t want to overstate the position we are in if you like, but you need time training together, you need time preparing together.

“Clearly, only just getting the squad together has been a challenge, missing the two weeks of pre-season ecause of the lockdown because of the Covid outbreak, there’s been disruption.

“So we’ve got lots of hard work to be done. We’ve got to spend plenty of time on the training field and at the same time we are playing games that we want to get results in as well, so there’s a

fine balance.”