Tigers finally bare their teeth as Youngs leads charge to first win
THE TIGERS are hardly burning bright in Leicester but they at least felt the warm glow of victory for the first time this season.
Leicester powered to a three-try, first-half lead thanks to a Ben Youngs double and Nick Malouf’s score before Gloucester had woken up.
Gloucester did score a try by Josh Hohneck and five kicked points from Billy Twelvetrees, but their opening day win over the champions Exeter Chiefs looks a distant memory. New head coach Johan Ackermann’s honeymoon period is well and truly over.
For Leicester, the win brings a huge sigh of relief. In his programme notes, Tigers chairman Peter Tom had labelled the start to the campaign ‘upsetting’ and ‘hugely disappointing’ and Matt O’Connor, the head coach, vowed to ‘fix the wrongs’.
Never before had they lost the opening three games in a Premiership season. O’Connor said: ‘We knew the importance of today’s game, we knew what the stakes were — you cannot lose your home games, not now.
‘Our intensity in the first 25 minutes was phenomenal but we probably let ourselves down a bit in the second.’
For their part, Gloucester managed to give away 10 penalties in the first 40 minutes so it was no surprise they were 21-0 down at half time.
Ben Youngs and George Ford claimed the first 14 of those points. First the England scrum-half tapped a penalty and dived over while Gloucester were snoring, then he sniped on the blindside after a rolling maul had been stopped short of the line.
Ford added both kicks and then collected a third conversion, from the right touchline, when Malouf went over for his first try for the club. Ford had started the move by flinging the ball wide to Telusa Veainu. He fed former Australian sevens star Malouf, who did the rest and Gloucester looked sunk after just 22 minutes.
If Leicester had run a
decent lineout they may have been further ahead, but the throws were poor.
After the break Gloucester came out angry and quickly reduced the deficit to 11 with a try from Hohneck, a Twelvetrees conversion and a penalty.
Their resistance was futile, however, as Leicester sought a bonuspoint score. They should have claimed it when Ollie Thorley deliberately knocked on five metres out, but referee Craig Maxwell-Keys did not give the penalty try and Ford had to be content with kicking a penalty from right in front of the posts for an earlier offence.
Leicester could not find that fourth score but gladly took the win.
Gloucester coach Ackermann said: ‘I wanted to see character from the guys and that’s what I saw. We could have gone from 21-0 down to 40-0 but we didn’t. There was a lot of fight. I haven’t got a magic wand. It took four years at my club in South Africa, it may take eight or it may take one here, we have to keep pushing.’