The losing run ends at eight. Leicester marked the start of Geordan Murphy’s tenure as permanent head coach with a bonus point win, much as they did the start of his tenure as caretaker.
Just a cursory glance of the Tigers’ line-up is enough to bewilder anyone pondering their recent travails. The England half-backs, an all-international midfield, same in the front row and on the wings. They should be able to play a bit and it turns out they can. What is more, they had been ravaged by illness all week.
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“Over half of the squad were affected,” said Murphy, “so we shut up shop on Wednesday afternoon and did not do any training. There was tonsillitis, there was flu, there were colds – it was horrific.”
It did not seem to affect them. Quins did well to stay as close as they did, James Lang’s penalties keeping them in the game and two second-half tries, the second at the death gave, them a chance of a bonus point. As it is, they feel Leicester’s breath on their necks, the Tigers climbing from three points off the bottom to a point behind Quins in the top six.
It says something about this league that a team of such names could find themselves flirting with relegation. With George Ford masterful, it became clear early on they were intent on ending that horror run of defeats after last week’s eighth edition.
Two years after the second world war is the last time Leicester lost nine in a row. It is the only time. The motivation to avoid such an indignity again looked bracing. The last time they had lost eight in a row, after all, was 43 years ago. Nine was evidently too much.
Pricked as so often by the rampaging contributions of Ellis Genge, Leicester were on the offensive from the word go. His break, developed, by Mike Fitzgerald, set up Ford to open the scoring with a penalty in the sixth minute. Then the maestro turned supplier, delaying a pass gorgeously for Jonah Holmes to slice through the bemused Quins defence for a 10-point lead.
Quins owed three of their first six points to a curious incident. Welford Road held its breath while Manu Tuilagi lay motionless after a tackle. He had been in bed all of Friday. Here he was prone again.
Luke Pearce, fearing a concussion, blew to stop play, whereupon Tuilagi jumped to his feet and said he was fine. “In which case that’s a penalty for not rolling away,” replied Pearce. While the doctor checked Tuilagi’s condition, Pearce allowed Lang to continue with the kick. Happily, Tuilagi was passed fit. Quins trailed by four points without having had to do much.
Ford’s second penalty on the half-hour mark was followed immediately by Holmes’s second try. Tatafu Polota-Nau latched on to a Quins tap down at the restart and found Holmes on his shoulder for the score. A further penalty apiece left the score 23-9 at the break, the least Leicester deserved.
So they became a little twitchy when Lang’s fourth penalty reduced Quins’ deficit to 11 five minutes into the second half. Still Leicester’s approach play, with Ford pulling the strings adroitly, was snappier. When a monstrous penalty from his own half set Tigers up on the five-metre line they overthrew. Ford put them there again a few minutes later; this time Quins stopped the maul dead.
Leicester’s third try eventually came in the 56th minute. Dan Cole found the ball in his great mitts twice in the same passage and ran about as far as he must have with the ball in his entire career. The second trundle took him close to the line, before Ford and Jonny May worked Tuilagi into the corner.
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Quins replied with their first try a few minutes later, Mike Brown off-loading to release Cadan Murley, but Leicester had the bonus point in the 68th minute. Tuilagi set up another attack, which May finished after sweet hands from Ford and Matt Toomua.
Alex Dombrandt crashed over for a second Quins try a second before time, so the visitors declined the conversion so that the game might restart. They could not clinch a bonus point, which would have flattered them. Leicester, instead, march on with one of their own and the first hints of a new confidence.