Why Leicester gambled on winger Murimurivalu playing as a flanker
High-flying Leicester boss Steve Borthwick has hailed the adaptability of his squad – including winger Kini Murimurivalu – in ensuring they continued their unbeaten start to the 2021/22 season into the new year and now head to Wasps next Sunday looking to extend their winning run to 16 games in all competitions. The Tigers kicked off 2022 with a convincing 31-0 demolition last Sunday of Newcastle that wasn’t without its drama and intrigue.
Borthwick had originally named his team on New Year’s Eve with a five/three forwards/backs split on the bench. However, by the time of the kick-off two days later, that balance on the Leicester bench had become four forwards and four backs as Harry Wells was promoted to start in place of the ill Ollie Chessum and wing Murimurivalu was added to the bench.
Rather than make an appearance as a back, though, the emergency Fijian inclusion was sent into battle on 66 minutes as a No19 jersey-wearing back-rower in place of George Martin and the closing minutes of the match were memorable for Leicester winning a scrum penalty with a back row featuring Murimurivalu and hooker Nic Dolly packing down alongside Wells.
While the transition of Dolly from the front row to back row wasn’t massively unusually as he was a forward by trade, the sight of winger Murimurivalu packing down at the Leicester scrum very much piqued the interest and Borthwick was impressed by the attitude that was evident in the victory that kept his team nine points clear of Saracens at the top of the Premiership.
“We will do all we can in every game to make sure we field a team,” explained Borthwick about the emergency positional rejig. “If that means we have to make adaptations and we play players out of position, as long as the safety issues are fine then that is what we do. We want to play the game, we want the contests and whatever is thrown at us we just have to get on with it.
It is no coincidence that the Tigers' success in the professional era has nearly always occurred with an ex-forward as the head coach. #LeicesterTigers @LeicesterTigers #PremRugby
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“You do always practice with different situations of people in the back row because, with yellow cards etc, those things can happen. Last weekend a player dropped out on matchday through circumstances that could not have been foreseen and I went to Kini and said, ‘This is what I would like you to do’. He jumped at the chance, had a big smile on his face and said, ‘Yes’. I said to the team, ‘This is what we are going to do, let’s get on with it’ and they all smiled and said, ‘Let’s get on with it’. That is a good attitude to have and it is one I want us to continue to have.”
Asked why he felt Murimurivalu could do a job as an emergency forward, Borthwick added: “He is a fabulous rugby player, great instinct, runs really well off nine, excellent defender, he knows how good he is around defending the breakdown as well in terms of contesting the ball. But the main thing about Kini is he is a fantastic rugby player so having him in the team, he would adapt.”
Playing out of position was something Borthwick was never asked to do during his own playing career as a second row. “I’m not sure I had the skillset to do much more than be a tight-five forward. Disappointingly for some reason, no one ever asked me to play fly-half or anything like that. I would like to have had pace but I knew where I was as a player.”
Borthwick added that he can’t promise that Leicester will have a more familiar bench split this Sunday at Wasps than last weekend’s four/four divvy-up. “Right now I can answer that question and say yes but who knows come matchday. It’s something we will talk to the players about and we will scenario plan that in training where I will throw something at them that they didn’t expect and see how the players adapt to it. I’ll say yes, but who knows come the morning of the game.”
Leicester’s progress under Borthwick this season has received much praise and a win at Wasps will see them match the club’s all-time best run of 16 wins set at the start of the 1983/84 season. It will also match Newcastle’s Premiership record that saw them win their first twelve league games of the 1997/98 campaign.
The coach, though, refused to buy into the conversations about records following a run that has so far featured eleven wins in the Premiership, two in the Champions Cup and two more in the Premiership Cup.
“You have to respect victory because this is a team that didn’t win a lot of games for a long so when you see the joy when they win a game you respect it, enjoy it, sit together in the changing room, talk about it, see the supporters and the joy it brings to them and then we get to start of the next week and it’s, ‘Let’s get on with the next game’. I would be very surprised if the players didn’t say that was what we had always done and always will do.
“If I keep thinking about the games that have gone before then we will put in a poor performance. All you can focus on is putting in a performance that you can right now (against Wasps). That is all I can control. I can’t control Europe, I can’t control what any other team in the Premiership does, I can’t control what my opponents do.
“All I can do is try and coach the team as well as I can and thankfully I have got a group of players who are really determined to work hard and do well, a really ambitious group of young men who have a lot of growth in them, so I am enjoying working with them and hopefully we can grow together.”
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments