For a club with Leicester’s proud history and rich tradition these are concerning days. Beaten at home by the Premiership’s bottom club, four tries conceded inside the first 36 minutes and booed off by sections of the crowd at half-time. A stirring second‑half revival could not mask the grim fact the Tigers have shipped 40 points in three of their first four league matches.
It was a quite extraordinary game, sealed by a dramatic 78th-minute try in the left corner from the Warriors’ teenage replacement forward Ted Hill, in his first Premiership appearance. Given Hill had one try in the bag it was some debut with the fly‑half, Duncan Weir, also finishing off two eye-catching tries inside the first six minutes to kickstart a remarkable contest.
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Huge credit has to go to Worcester, as purposeful and accurate as Leicester were initially meandering and sluggish, but the home deficiencies that led to Matt O’Connor being sacked one game into the season have not departed with the Australian. If the controversy-laden defeat at Wasps last week was a tough experience for the interim head coach, Geordan Murphy, the first 55 minutes here were even worse.
“I don’t think that reflects us as a playing group,” he said. “If it does we’re in trouble.”
Defensively, the statistics do not make encouraging reading. In their four games the Tigers have won only once and conceded 22 tries, despite boasting a cluster of experienced England internationals. For all the excellence of Worcester’s approach play, with Weir, Ryan Mills and Bryce Heem all outstanding at a venue where the Warriors triumphed last season, Leicester were alarmingly porous at times.
It is going to be that kind of Premiership season: as Bristol also underlined on Saturday there are no outclassed stragglers this time. Worcester lost their first three games but all were narrow reverses and part of the veteran coach Alan Solomons’s match buildup involved reciting to his team the following motivational quote about turning the tide by the American writer Elbert Hubbard: “Sometimes prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.”
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From the Warriors’ perspective that is precisely what unfolded. Before Leicester knew what had hit them the visitors were 14-0 up, Mills and Heem making spectacular bursts before Weir’s first try and the lock Pierce Phillips, initially ahead of the ball carrier but ruled not to be interfering with play, doing the hard yards for the second.
Leicester could barely even collect a restart properly and it was not a massive surprise when more slick midfield handling put the hooker Jack Singleton over in the left corner to make it 22-6 inside 23 minutes.
Despite a driven maul score for the flanker Guy Thompson, the Warriors had their try bonus point secured before the interval when another long pass from the influential Mills put Chris Pennell over in the same spot. The Tigers were humiliated 43-0 by Glasgow on their own patch in January last year but this was starting to feel even worse.
Among the few to rise above the general malaise was Jonny May and his spectacular 50-metre individual score after gathering George Ford’s chip on the full, sparked an unlikely revival with the Tigers scoring 26 unanswered points in the space of 18 madcap minutes. When Ford, finally starting to resemble an England fly-half again, skipped past and away from the cover to touch down near the posts and convert his own try to make it 37-37 with three minutes left, the unthinkable momentarily looked possible.
This particular bunch of Tigers, though, have a soft underbelly. Up the other end surged Worcester and with Leicester’s Jimmy Stevens lying injured and the home defence already stretched by Josh Adams’s close-range surge, the scrum-half, Francois Hougaard, sent the hulking Hill plunging over in the left corner.
Weir’s conversion soaked up the last few remaining seconds and the Warriors had the victory their enterprise and spirit fully deserved.