Burns kicks Tigers to win in the rain

Tigers finished a mixed bag of a preseason with a tight 21-17 win against Cardiff in the Welford Road rain.  Freddie Burns slotted 11 points with tries from Bob Barbieri and Ben Youngs; Cardiff’s points came through a Lloyd Williams try, a Rhys Patchell drop goal and 3 Patchell penalties.

Tigers debuted their new bright orange away kit, “Cherry Tomato” as the manufactures have it, and their new bright orange new big screen sponsors Sthil.  Equally eye catching was the opening 10 minutes; Tigers attacked with pace and vigour to score two tries of good quality.

First Manu Tuilagi took the ball down the Crumbie blindside; with his path blocked, belying the internet intellegencia who decry him as a bosh merchant without a brain or skill, he fancied his chances with a grubber kick.  The bounce deceived Wales 7s international Dan Fish and let Bob Barbieri claim the loose ball for his first try in Tigers colours.

The second was an all time Welford Road classic.  Burns threw a fantastic long pass to find Tuilagi, the Samoan burst powerfully through the middle before passing to Goneva.  The Fijian freed the arms and found Ben Youngs sweeping behind in support, who beat the last man to score.

Burns was on target with the first conversion but elicited the famous Crumbie groan when his second attempt sailed wide.  Welcome to Leicester, Freddie.

Cardiff had looked out of sorts in the early stages, as if Warburton and co. had celebrated the week’s long awaited peace deal between the WRU and the Regions a little bit too much.  The visitors eventually found their feet and scored from their first real attack.  Fly half Patchell made an outside break, his pace taking him away from a despairing Barbieri lunge, with the defence broken he committed Goneva before passing to Williams, the Welsh scrum half just eluded the covering defence to score.

Patchell missed the conversion but chipped further into the lead when referee Mathew Carley ruled Salvi offside from a contested high ball.  4 minutes later Patchell landed a second penalty for a half time score of 12-11.

Cardiff made a raft of substitutes at half time including a whole replacement front row; it made little difference as Tigers possessed superior power all game.  Patchell gave Cardiff the lead after half time with a superb drop goal and then stretched the lead following a bizarre penalty against a rampant Tigers scrum.

In a heavy down pour Tigers tightened up and started to utilise the forwards much more to bring the game under control.  Tigers produced a sustained period of pressure in the Cardiff half with the Welsh side giving away a penalty for Burns to reduce the arrears to two.

Some of the Tigers fans were disappointed that we didn’t try for the corner and the 5 points from the second half penalties, but I can’t agree with this.  Burns needs to get used to kicking at Welford Road and kicking under pressure.  The first priority has to be to win and kicking the goals was the way to do that.

Burns missed his first chance to go ahead after a fierce driving maul but just moments later a scrum penalty gave him a second chance which he took.  The coup de grace was applied after a towering Garryowen and a superb chase by Manu Tuilagi.

Tuilagi really was the difference between the two sides, the two times in the first half we gave him the ball in the opposition half we scored.  Manu's injury badly affect us last season, we failed to gain a single try bonus point during his abscence, so Cockrerill will hope to have Hinckley's favourite Samoan fit and firing all season.

Tigers Serve up Plate

Tigers took home the inaugural Premiership 7s Plate on Friday night following victories over Northampton and London Irish.  

Tigers made two changes to the squad that earned qualification; George Catchpole rested a minor knock and Tomi Jones was dropped.  In their place Tigers called up Stourbridge's Gary Dipple & Tynedale's Ben Frankland.

Tigers looked set take their place in the night's blue ribbon Cup competition as tries from Andy Bulumakau and a scything break from Oli Bryant gave them a 14-5 lead over Cardiff with just 2 minutes remaining.  But a break away score by Welsh 7s international Dan Fish gave the Blues hope before Tom Williams shattered Tigers' hopes.

Tigers started with Farnworth, Frankland, Tresidder, Fowles, Bulumakau, Woodhead and David Williams and conceded early as Cardiff broke down a large blindside from a midfield scrum.  Cardiff dominated the first half, two try saving tackles from David Williams kept the score to one before a crucial intervention from Fowles on the goal line not only prevented a certain try but created one; Bulumakau racing the length of the field for a half time lead.

Cardiff started the second half well but the first clear cut chance came to Tresidder; spotting a hole in the Welsh defence the field opened up before him, but the Derbyshire native did not have the pace or the support to finish the break.  Sub Dan Rundle also had a great chance following his chip and go but muffed his fly hack; under pressure Cardiff knocked on and from the scrum Tigers' Oli Bryant cut back through the breaking up pack to race under the posts.

9 points up with 2 minutes remaining Tigers will be frustrated with how they threw the game away.  A simple missed tackle inside the Cardiff 22 gave the Welsh side an inch, they took a mile simply drawing the full back for Dan Fish to race away for a 90 metre score.  Tigers earned a penalty with the TV clock showing 14 minutes but the referee's time had 14 seconds left.  A poor ruck let Cardiff turn Will Owen over at the base and Dan Rundle's turnstile defence let Tom Williams in for the heartbreaking score.

With the Cup spilled Tigers were left to the Plate and an intriguing derby match with Northampton, who had been over run by eventual champions Gloucester.  In torrential rain Tigers started with Owen, Farnworth, Tresidder, Fowles, Bulumakau, David Williams and Bryant.  Much like the Cardiff game Tigers were down early; Sam Olver's delicate chip was gathered by Hutchinson and despite Fowles attentions was ruled to have scored.  Saints made it 12-0 after first team flanker Teimana Harrison picked off Will Owen's sloppy off load.

Tigers were facing an early and chastening exit but another top draw intervention from Bryant gave hope.  Receiving the ball on half way he broke through a Saints tackle before possessing the pace to round the full back and score under the posts.  Tigers then scored straight from the second half's kick off to take the lead 14-12.  First Tresidder went up the right before it was spread wide left to Fowles whose pace stretched the defence, he off loaded to Bulumakau; the Fijian's footwork beat the last man and he was clear to the line.

Bulumakau created the last score for Rundle; he swept up the loose ball and beat his man to crack the middle of the defence.  Rundle's support play earned him the easy finish as Northampton chased Bulumakau back hard.  Tigers had a 21-12 lead and managed to see out the remaining 3 minutes to secure a place in the Plate final against London Irish.

Tigers started the final with Owen, Frankland, Tresidder, Fowles, Bulumakau, Woodhead and David Williams.  Tigers took the lead as Fowles pounced on Woodhead's chip through, smashing the ball onto the line to ground it.  Tigers defence and poor discipline from both sides made the game fairly slow, Irish earning a yellow card for killing the one clean break in the first 6 minutes. 

Tigers took the full 2 minutes to take advantage of their superior numbers, Will Owen's pass cut out half the Irish team, allowing Frankland to draw the final man and give Woodhead a run to the line.  Tigers defence suffocated the Irish attack and created turnover ball that Tigers exploited for the final try.  George Tresidder's excellent catch and pass under pressure created the space for Dan Rundle to score.  Fatigue effected Irish badly as Tigers managed to keep them out and secure a rare clean sheet. 

Oli Bryant was the stand out attacking player on the night with his two tries excellent, David Williams will be pleased with his defensive contribution but disappointed with a high profile knock on as he took a quick penalty.  Of the specialists Andy Bulumakau has already secured a deal with Doncaster and surely Josh Fowles talents will see him move on from Longton in the 6th tier of English rugby.

Anglo-Welsh Premiership: Can it cover the costs?

So we’ve heard a lot recently about the possibility of the Welsh regions, or perhaps their underlying clubs, joining an expanded Aviva Premiership.  Most people have chosen to evaluate the sporting case, which is reasonably sound, but what about the business case? 

We aren’t charities and the whole relationship with ERC fell apart because of their inability to finance the games rather than their merit.

First off what are we generating at the moment?  The BT deal has been said to be “worth up to £152m” leading to much speculation about various clauses.  Never underestimate the ability of Mark McCafferty to be stupid but from all corners it seems to be two deals, a Premiership deal and a potential European deal.

The previous Sky/ESPN deal was widely reported to be worth £54m over 3 seasons.  So £18m a season or £1.5m to each club per season.  The BT Deal’s premiership portion is said to be a 50% increase which would be £27m per season (£108m over the 4 years so fitting in the “up to” scenario), or £2.2m per club per season. 

Aviva paid £20m to sponsor the league for 4 seasons back in 2010 and last summer it was an announced they had extended their deal.  No numbers always make me sceptical and assume at best a plateauing of revenue.  McCafferty insists there is an increase in that deal but assuming not we still have £5m in the pot from Aviva.

As out lined in this article the ERC contributes roughly £630k to an English club.  This is why PRL can afford to be so bullish with ERC over its future.  ERC by starving us have made us self reliant.  The BT deal increase covers the ERC short fall and then some.  Of course we all want that cherry on top but it won’t make or break us.

Shortcutting the sums from the Tigers accounts we can see that PRL roughly distribute £3.5m to each club a season and that in any circumstance that should be in line to rise next season.

So, I hear you ask, what has this got to do with the Welsh clubs?  Well the Welsh clubs inclusion has to match or increase the amount PRL distribute to each club or it isn’t worth it.

So do the numbers add up?

Presuming a 16 team league, on whatever configuration you like, the numbers are steep.  PRL currently distributes around £40m each season it would have to find another c.£14m to fund these new teams without affecting the others central revenue.

The new BT deal pays £27m to show 3 games a week from 22 rounds of action plus the play offs, 69 games in total.  Or £392k per game.  Now here come some of the big assumptions.  If BT were happy to pay that rate for more content then the 8 extra rounds of fixtures would generate £9.408m.  That’s pretty close.  If we copied the French model of play offs with quarter finals between places 3 to 6 we’d have 2 more games and £10m to play with.

Wales has a population of 3m people, more than the North East but less than Yorkshire, but has higher levels of Rugby viewership than those regions making them more valuable to broadcasters.  BT would have their own focus groups but if we take just 1% of the population being motivated to sign up, or retain BT broadband, by this move that would see 30,000 paying customers for BT.  I think that is a reasonable estimate as it is lower than their combined average attendances and half the attendance the national team gets most games.  Based on a price of £30 per month, including line rental, that would yield £10.8m p.a.  to BT in broadband sales with customers signing up for BT Sport through other means at £12 a month on top.

Match ticket sales are an important source of revenue for clubs.  Rather surprisingly, if you follow certain people’s claims about the Heineken Cup, the Premiership has a higher average attendance than the Heineken Cup.  And if you think that is skewed by things like the derby with Saints or the Christmas fixture being Premiership games then consider that in the last two home games we sold almost 2,000 more tickets to see London Irish than for Montpellier.

A question would where does the LV Cup fit in all this?  The LV yields c.£500k in competition money, making it more valuable than the Heineken Cup per game, and crucially 2 home games.  Even with all the discounts, offers and Season Tickets Tigers would still expect to clear something like £500k from ticket & hospitality sales, per match, at the B grade prices.  More when you factor in merchandise and catering sales.

Losing the LV money and the extra game do make the figures trickier.  Will that c.£1m be recouped in higher attendances across the 4 new league games vs. the 3 Heineken Cup games and the 2 LV Cup games? 

You would expect the League games to achieve roughly 8% higher attendances than an equivalent Heineken Cup match and 23% higher than a LV Cup game based on recent seasons’ attendances.  Those figures would suggest not being able to cover the loss of game let alone the LV Cup competition money.

But then travel to Wales is significantly cheaper than transporting a squad of 23 players, plus spares, plus coaches and doctors, physios, their equipment etc etc all the way to Montpellier or Treviso.  Or even Belfast.  So there are savings to be made.

Reduced exposure in Europe would not be a positive for sponsorship sales and increased exposure in Wales would not make up for that.  But by covering the total number of games I think it is fair to call that revenue neutral without any harder data to back it up either way.  The home market is where the bulk of spending is targeted and that wouldn’t change; after all is Caterpillar or Goldsmith’s really paying us for one game a year in France?

So is there a business case for an expanded Premiership including Welsh sides?  There is if BT is willing to pay for it.  If the pot cannot grow to cover it then sadly we need to find other options.  Home games pay the bills and any solution needs at least 16 of them.  A 14 team Premiership with an enhanced Europe would be the best of both worlds, if only we can get all parties to agree with us.  

Cubs Crushed by Cardiff

Tigers Academy Cubs were blown away by a 20 minute flood of points for Cardiff as the Cubs went from leading 16-15 at half time to trailing 39-16 on the hour mark.  A mini fight back ensured the score line ended 44-28 in favour of the visitors.  Ollie Bryant at fly half bagged 2 tries, 2 conversion and 3 penalties for an impressive personal haul of 23, Perry Humphreys claimed the other 5 pointer.  

Unfortunately the Cardiff scorers are unavailable at this time.  I will update if they become known later. 

Tigers team had a real international flavour as Loughborough University's Junior All American Tom Bliss started at scrum half with Italy's Tiziano Pasquali was at prop.  New Zealander's Javiah Pohe and Paqualle Dunn were the centres, while on the bench Scott Steele is of course a Scotland U-20 international and Djustice Duru-Sears hails from Ontario, Canada.  Winger Luke Jones is also from Guernsey. 

Tigers:
O Tom Hudson
N Perry Humphreys
M Pasqualle Dunn
L Javiah Pohe
K George Catchpole (c)
J Oliver Bryant
I Tom Bliss
A Tiziano Pasquali
B Jamal Ford-Robinson
C James Thraves
D Matthew Hubbart
E Tom Price
F Jake Farnworth
H Oliver Povoas
G Ed Milne 
Replacements
Jack Holmes
Djustice Duru-Sears
Ryan Mason
Scott Steele
Tom Bellak
Luke Jones
George Prince 


Cardiff Blues Academy: 15 Joey Griffin 14 Ellis Wyn Benham 13 Garin Smith 12 Aled Summerhill 11 Harry Davies 10 Will Thomas 9 Shaun Clarke
8 Dan Crimmins 7 Sam Parker 6 Reuben Tucker 5 Matt Screech 4 James Sheeky 3 Will Griff John 2 Jack Dando (c) 1 Calum Lewis
 
Replacements: Jack Dunning, Darran Harris, Brad Thyer, Ollie Hitchings, Ben Roach, Tom Williams, Sam Edwards, Ryan Evans