Leicester were champions five years ago but a slow, gradual descent is gathering speed. They dropped into the bottom half of the table after a feeble, disjointed display against promoted Bristol, who recorded their second-highest Premiership victory after lacing their swashbuckling tendencies with a pinch of pragmatism.
The Tigers played the final 56 minutes with 14 men after their centre Kyle Eastmond was sent off for a head-high tackle on the Bristol fly-half, Ian Madigan, that contained enough force for Wayne Barnes to rule, after watching several replays, that it merited the ultimate sanction, but even at full strength they were identifiable as Leicester only by the badge on their jerseys.
They started the day sharing the worst defensive record in the Premiership with Bristol and finished it in sole possession. They gave up a try bonus point for the sixth time in nine league matches this season and while Leicester could point to the loss of Eastmond, the match was only one minute old when they conceded a try to a routine move from a lineout.
Madigan’s inside pass brought the wing Alapati Leiua into midfield. He shredded the defence all too easily and the former Leicester hooker Harry Thacker, who had scored a second-half hat-trick at Wasps last week, supported him on the outside. Such defensive naivity is a symptom of something more serious than a loss of form and while the Tigers’ interim head coach, Geordan Murphy, talked about the quality in his squad and that more than half the season still had to be played, a team used to competing at the top looks ill-equipped for a dogfight.
“I did not see us getting into a relegation battle until today,” he said. “We were exposed and it was really disappointing and it will boost Bristol’s chances of staying up. We are not halfway through the season. If we play like that every week, it will be a factor but I expect us to perform better.”
Bristol became the seventh Premiership side in the past three years to put 40 points on Leicester. Defence is usually a barometer of a team’s morale and for all Leicester’s pedigree, only one of their backs was not a full international, there was little collective spirit about a club that has placed such a strong emphasis on the team ethic. There was no lack of effort here, it was merely uncoordinated.
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Bristol looked the more likely winners after Thacker’s try. The first of Madigan’s five penalties put them 10 points up before Leicester scored a try from nothing. Manu Tuilagi won a penalty after initially falling off Will Hurrell as he attempted to tackle his opposite number. Adam Thompstone came into midfield from the resulting lineout and smuggled the ball to the England centre, to the surprise of the defence who offered little resistance 30 metres from the line.
Eastmond’s dismissal came nine minutes later. Madigan’s penalty was quickly matched by George Ford after the Bristol prop John Afoa was sent to the sin-bin for a body check on Jonny May, but Leicester did not profit from the numbers being evened up for 10 minutes. Dan Cole’s failure to roll away near his own line gave Madigan another three points and Afoa was still sitting down when Thacker scored his second try after Steven Luatua was tackled but not held.
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It would have been worse but for Ford tracking back to foil Luke Morahan and the fly-half saved another try after the break when he kept pace with Leiua after another Bristol counter-attack, but by then the match had been won and a bonus point banked.
Morahan scored the try of the match four minutes after the restart. Afoa robbed Ford after the captain fielded a kick, heading the ball as it came loose to Harry Randall. Thacker played first receiver and Madigan threw a long pass to Morahan on the right wing who had the space to May with a step inside before taking on the England wing on the outside and winning a 40-metre race.
Randall scored Bristol’s fourth try, tapping a penalty just inside the Leicester half and wriggling out of two tackles before slipping away from Ben Youngs, speeding past Thompstone and taking Jonah Holmes over the line with him. It made it 35-10, a sufficient margin to take Bristol above Leicester in the table.
They increased it with two more Madigan penalties while shutting out their opponents who need to get a grip in a league that has no respect for reputation.