‘Embarrassed’ Tuilagi finds little consolation in try
There were precious few bright spots to this defeat from a Leicester perspective. But the gradual return to form and fitness of Manu Tuilagi was at least some consolation.
The England centre – who enjoyed a brief cameo in the win over Australia last month – scored Leicester’s only try, peeling off the side of a ruck after 16 minutes and shrugging off the attentions of Alapati Leiua to muscle his way over the line.
But that was as good as it got for the visitors, for whom this was a sixth straight defeat in all competitions and one which raises the very real prospect of a relegation battle.
Harry Thacker, one of their former players of course, had already exposed Tigers’ soft underbelly by the time Tuilagi crossed. And not even the most one-eyed of Leicester fans would argue that the red card for Kyle Eastmond 25 minutes into the match cost them the game.
This result was never in doubt, though it may have affected the margin of Bristol’s victory, with Thacker, Luke Morahan and Harry Randall adding further tries to secure a bonus-point win which, remarkably, lifted Bristol above Leicester in the table.
Leicester were desperate. No wonder Tuilagi looked so sheepish when presented with the Leicester fans’ man-of-the-match award. “It’s hard to enjoy anything at the moment,” he told the club’s website. “We’re embarrassed with the result and performance, it’s nowhere near good enough or up to our standards.
“No disrespect [to the fans who voted for him], it’s just hard to think I deserve it or any of us do. We need to be much, much better .... ”
Geordan Murphy, Leicester’s interim manager, also used the word “embarrassed”, admitting there were a “lot of issues” which they needed to resolve. Whether the former Leicester star will be given the time to solve them remains to be seen.
Leicester appear to be suffering from an identity crisis, with no coherent game plan on display here.
The same could not be said for Bristol, who were excellent on Saturday, snapping into tackles and showing attacking verve for their third win of the season.
With just four points separating the bottom seven, it promises to be a tense second half of the season.
Pat Lam, the Bristol head coach, said that while it might be exciting for fans he did not think the system of promotion and relegation was good for English rugby in general.
“While it is good for purists – and I would say this if we were at the top of the table – and great for fans, I don’t think it is great for the English game,” he said. “Everything is about survival, whereas [if you scrapped relegation] you could get some serious development and bring a lot of young guys through.
“If you look at the two best teams in the world, Ireland and New Zealand, they are similar with central contracts. [In England] everyone is making decisions based on not going down rather than bringing the best English players through.”