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Is this the weekend that could turn Leicester Tigers' miserable season around?

By Josh Raisey
Manu Tuilagi has returned to the Leicester line-up (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Leicester Tigers are in unfamiliar territory this weekend as it is the first time they are not in Europe’s elite competition. 

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They face Pau in the Challenge Cup on Saturday at Welford Road in their debut outing in that competition. While this is new ground for them, the situation that the club are in is all too familiar to fans over the past year. 

The fallen European giants faced a tough season in 2018/19, finishing eleventh in the Gallagher Premiership and failing to make it out of their pool in the Champions Cup. 

This season is not looking better, as they already sit at the foot of the English league table. 

However, this weekend could mark a change in fortunes for the Tigers, as England’s World Cup stars return. George Ford, Manu Tuilagi, Ben Youngs and Dan Cole all start while Ellis Genge, who was also in Eddie Jones’ squad, is on the bench. 

Leicester fans are signalling this as the game where their season is turned around, as the likes of Ford and Tuilagi are in sensational form off the back of their displays in Japan. 

With newcomers Jordan Taufua and Tomas Lavanini quickly growing accustomed to life in the Midlands (although the Kiwi misses this game with a head injury), it is no wonder why so many feel that this shaky start to the season is only a minor blip. 

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Although Leicester have only won one game this season in the league, only four have been played, which means Geordan Murphy’s side can still mount a resurgence. 

There was a lot of hope over the summer with some extensive recruitment to both the squad and the coaching staff, and while the season has not started the way that anyone in Leicester would have wanted, the campaign is young and it could kick start on Saturday. 

WATCH: RugbyPass takes a look behind the scenes at the Leicester Tigers’ player academy.

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J
Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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