TIGER BALM O’Connor: Losers’ bonus point might save us from Brexit
something. It was all-hands-tothe-pump stuff as Racing threw everything at them at the death but the Tigers were equal to it.
O’Connor said: “By the time you get to round five or six that point will become important.
“If we had come away empty handed it would have been a waste. We got a game point and we stay alive in the group. We have not got a lot to complain about. The disappointment is we did not do enough to get the win.”
Leicester were pummelled for most of the game, with Racing’s second row Leone Nakarawa off the scale. He is 6ft7in and over 19-stone but runs and passes like a centre and his one-handed offloads had Tigers scrambling. O’Connor added: “We didn’t do a great job on him. He is a special athlete – he is a big man, he offloads the ball. Those Fijian lads love open spaces and they are very hard to stop.”
The visitors did throw a few shots of their own with Ford and Matt Toomua combining well in midfield but they were up against it. The Tigers took the lead when flanker Luke Hamilton ran in the third minute, and not one French defender laid a glove on him.
But Nakarawa levelled it up and when Bernard Le Roux crashed over it looked like Tigers were in for a mauling.
But they dodged that when Racing centre Virimi Vakatawa was binned for a high tackle on wing Nick Malouf, and Leicester made the most of the extra man either side of half-time.
May was put away by a great long pass from Toomua and the French were rocking.
Back with 15 men they piled on the pressure but Leicester held firm to keep a grip on their bonus.