Green’s ready for toughest test of season
PREMIERSHIP leaders Leicester come back after their bye week ready to take on what lock Calum Green sees as their biggest challenge yet.
The bookies may not think so, but the Tigers are in pole position to dethrone Harlequins as English champions. Eight games into the 22-game regular season they have won the lot and go into today’s clash still top of the table and nine points clear of the Londoners.
Like the Norwich City side he supports, Green has been through thick and thin with Leicester and knows not to get carried away, whatever the situation.
Green, who re-joined Tigers from Newcastle in 2019, told The Rugby Paper: “The environment that we are in, even when we win a match it is good for that moment afterwards, but then we come in on the Monday morning it is the same kind of routine; we analyse the game and look at what we have done well, what we need to improve on and then we focus on whoever we are playing the following week.
“It is better when you’re winning rugby matches, but by no means are we getting ahead of ourselves.”
For all the obvious contrasts in styles between today’s teams, both have plenty of tries in them. But Green expects the visitors to test them in every area, not just in the backs.
“I think this will be our biggest challenge,” he says. “They come here as champions and will want to put down a good marker, so we’ll have to be on it.
“With people like Danny Care and Marcus Smith, you have got to be alive and be ready for what they are going to bring because they can change the game in an instant.
“Although they have got these backs who are very good players, you have to appreciate and deal with their forwards first as well because they have got a lot of good runners in their forwards who have played a lot of Premiership games and have
been there
and done it. As forwards, we know what we have to do – we have to deliver good set-piece and front up physically.”
Fortunately for Tigers, Green has never shied away from the contact side of the game. In three consecutive seasons of Premiership rugby at Newcastle, he was at the top-end of the tackles made charts, with well over 200 per season.
This season, he is averaging around seven per game, a significant dropoff. As Green’s appetite for hard work hasn’t changed how does he explain it?
“I think it is just the way we defend, and I think the game has changed a little bit. Teams are probably trying to get to the edge a little bit more so your backs and back rows are making more tackles than they were.
“I feel like I am still working hard and putting myself out there. Sometimes in games the tackles find you really, maybe people used to target me at Newcastle and think they could get at me!”
It’s not that Green and his teammates need any inspiration to dig in and go that extra mile.
Kevin Sinfield’s 101-mile run from Leicester to Leeds in 24 hours, raising more than £1m for MND, helping his former teammate Rob Burrow and others affected by the condition, is a brilliant example of what the human body can achieve through sheer grit and determination.
“There are no words to describe it, he’s incredibly inspirational,” said Green.
“I remember in my time at Leeds we trained at Kirkstall and the Rhinos were there. That’s when they were at their best with players like Kevin, Rob Burrow, Danny Maguire and Jamie Peacock, they had a mad team.
“To have him as a (defence) coach now is unbelievable, I am still in awe of him a little bit.
“We have got a lot of respect for him, all the boys have, when he talks people just listen to whatever he says.
“If he is willing do that for his teammates, it kind of makes you think, I can work hard for 80 minutes.”