Tigers face relegation scrap says Murphy
GEORDAN Murphy admits his Leicester Tigers could face a relegation battle after watching them mauled by rampant Bristol.
Centre Kyle Eastmond faces his second ban of the year after being sent off for a high tackle during the embarrassing 41-10 loss at Ashton Gate.
Of more concern to interim head coach Murphy, though, will be the manner of a loss after which he described Tigers’ defensive efforts as “naïve” and said opponents are “smelling blood”.
Leicester conceded two tries to old boy Harry Thacker as they dropped below their opponents after losing six of their first nine games.
Six points separate the bottom seven, with ten-time Premiership champions Tigers among them. Asked if his side were facing a battle to secure their top-flight status, Murphy replied: “I didn’t until today. If we play that badly every week that (relegation) would be a factor.”
Murphy must prioritise Leicester’s defence, which is the worst in the Premiership having conceded 39 tries.
Murphy said: “We’ve been working day-in, dayout on defence but I don’t know if it’s because we’re in a bit of a hole and teams are smelling blood, but we’re making really naïve and silly mistakes.”
WHERE Saracens had their lines of communication clear, Wasps had them in all sorts of a tangle and they paid the price as the champions saw them off in the final quarter.
The try from Saracens bench lock Nick Isiekwe ten minutes from time highlighted best how the expensive parts Wasps have assembled are failing to mesh. When a Wasps attack broke down in the Saracens 22 a long clearance by Alex Lozowski saw Elliot Daly race back to collect it.
Daly’s decision to step inside the first chaser rather than bang the ball into touch backfired when he was hemmed in, and with Willie Le Roux a few metres infield he threw a speculative pass which went straight into the arms of the lurking Isiekwe.
Isiekwe dropped over the line, and with Lozowski converting for a seven from seven goal-kicking tally and a 19-point haul, Wasps were well and truly buried.
As the match approached the final quarter Wasps were trailing only 12-6, due much more to an abrasive defensive effort than any coherence in attack, where their spillage was of beer hall proportions.
However, the strain of keeping their defensive line intact was starting to tell as the match reached the hour mark, and when an offload out of a tackle from Michael Rhodes to Brad Barritt breached it Saracens were in business.
Lozowski brought the ball back infield on a diagonal run, and after a couple of rucks close to the Wasps line Alex Goode fired the ball to the touchline for the impressive George to score in the corner.
Goode was an accomplished stand-in at fly-half for the rested Owen Farrell, and when Lozowski nailed the touchline conversion Wasps faced an uphill slog at 19-6 in arrears.
A further Lozowski penalty meant they never got a foothold, and their disarray was summed up when Le Roux took his time recovering a Saracens kick before firing a loose pass which new signing Michele Campagnaro knocked on.
It was not the sort of ‘welcome to Wasps’ the Italian Test centre wanted, and when Dai Young said later that he is frustrated by the time it is taking for his side to gel you did not have to look far for evidence.
Le Roux had plenty of accomplices when it came to poor passing, so Wasps were easy meat for a stonewall Saracens defence in which Maro Itoje loomed large.
They had a couple of chances, the best created by Nathan Hughes. The No.8 blasted through the challenges of Itoje and Rhodes to charge deep into the 22, but when he offloaded to Craig Hampson the Saracens defence regrouped, and another Wasps fumble robbed momentum.
Wasps best chance of getting on the front foot was an aggressive scrummaging display, but even there they were nullified by some puzzling refereeing calls, whereby the scrum going forward was given the penalty in some instances and penalised the next.
The penalty count favoured Saracens, and although Daly kicked a 55m monster to get Wasps off the mark, with Lozowski unerringly innacurate with three strikes the visitors trailed 9-3 at the interval.
Another Daly penalty early in the second-half was the last time they troubled the scoreboard, and the longer the half went on the more cohesive Saracens became.