On balance Leicester could have picked a better weekend to head to Paris. At least there were no riots or tear gas canisters inside Racing’s stunning new indoor home but an 80-minute water cannon bombardment might have been less arduous than some of the on-field punishment they soaked up en route to a 14th defeat in their last 15 European forays across the Channel.
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It says everything about the Tigers’ current situation that conceding a mere five tries almost counted as a triumph. Had Racing played the entire match at the same pace and intensity as the first quarter it would have been an annihilation; to their credit Leicester fought gallantly right to the end, registered four tries of their own and, scoreboard-wise, managed to avoid another total wipeout following their 41-point humbling in Bristol the previous week.
On another sobering weekend for many of England’s Champions Cup representatives, they were partly assisted by Racing’s regular attempts to out-Harlem the Harlem Globetrotters rather than grind the Tigers into the 4G carpet, particularly when the visitors had first Manu Tuilagi and then Ellis Genge yellow-carded. The French heavyweights will find Welford Road a slightly different environment on Sunday but Leicester may just consider they have weathered the worst of the storm as they seek to stay alive in pool four.
They will still need to win their last three matches to qualify but George Ford, Matt To’omua and Tuilagi are starting to combine nicely and Sione Kalamafoni delivered another colossal performance in one of the more extraordinary sporting environments anywhere in the world. Short of throwing a rugby ball around on the Starship Enterprise it is hard to imagine a more surreal backdrop for the game; the only gilet jaune on view, though, was worn by the referee Nigel Owens, who presumably changed into a different coloured top before heading out into the night.
Leicester, either way, were aggrieved to be awarded only two penalties by Owens in the entire game and did remarkably well, all things considered, to win the second half 12-10 having conceded a try bonus point before the interval. Some of Racing’s approach work was sublime, with Finn Russell’s inch-perfect long pass in the build-up to Juan Imhoff’s superb 13th-minute try a thing of particular beauty.
When Virimi Vakatawa and Simon Zebo were both rewarded for their enterprise with a try apiece, the latter again set free by the dextrous Russell, and flanker Baptiste Chouzenoux crashed over for his side’s fourth after 33 minutes, Racing looked on the verge of making a major statement. But, despite losing Jonah Holmes to concussion and Matt Smith with a dislocated shoulder, the Tigers’ own determination to play at pace and fight fire with fire were rewarded with a quartet of well-taken tries, the highlight arriving when Tuilagi roared round the outside to take Mike Fitzgerald’s pass and beat the cover.
If the result was never in doubt even before Olivier Klemenczak’s 60th-minute try, Leicester’s interim director of rugby, Geordan Murphy, was suitably encouraged by the way his team kept going, culminating when Ford led another long-range break-out and a quick throw-in helped release Adam Thompstone for the all-important bonus point try. “I don’t think you can question the endeavour and the passion of the blokes in the shirt which is something we did do last week,” suggested the former Ireland full-back. “We conceded too easily in the first half and gave ourselves a mountain to climb but I was really proud of the boys. It was probably a great game to watch if you weren’t coaching in it.”
The Leicester hierarchy has poured scorn on reports claiming Harlequins’ Paul Gustard is on their wish-list. Murphy, though, confirmed the club’s board is looking to reinforce the current setup when and if the right people become available. “If we can support any of our coaching team,myself included, and bring quality people into our environment to make the club better, then I’m all for it,” he stressed. “The board have been really good. They’ve said they’ll give us whatever support and help we need.”
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Whoever they engage is not going to resurrect the Tigers overnight. Racing and Ulster remain the favourites to progress from this pool and Leicester’s away record is not pretty. Tigers, moreover, have not won back-to-back matches in this tournament since 2015/16, which hardly inspires massive confidence. Civil unrest may be rife in France’s cities but, as things stand, it does not seem to be distracting their leading rugby teams.