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Leicester make it eight from eight as Bath's wait for a first win goes on

By PA
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

George Ford scored 25 points as Leicester maintained their 100 per cent start to the Premiership season with a 40-23 win over Bath.

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Winless Bath made the table-toppers fight all the way for an eighth straight victory with a performance of spirit and commitment which belied their league position.

Leicester’s tries came from Matt Scott, Nic Dolly, Tom Cowan-Dickie and Ford, who added four penalties and four conversions.

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Max Clark and Josh McNally touched down for Bath, with Danny Cipriani converting both and kicking three penalties, but they remain at the bottom having picked up only three points from their opening seven games.

Leicester took a third-minute lead through a Ford penalty. Two powerful bursts from Nemani Nadolo put the defence on the back foot and when Bath were penalised, Ford knocked over a straightforward kick.

The visitors immediately responded with a well-created try. Leicester overthrew a line-out in their 22 for Bath to capitalise when an expertly-timed pass from Cipriani to Tom Dunn was the catalyst for Clark’s score.

Bath wing Will Muir was then sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on and the home side took advantage of the wing’s absence by scoring a try from Dolly following an unstoppable line-out drive.

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Leicester suffered an injury blow when former Bath player Freddie Burns departed with a rib injury and they lost their lead when a Cipriani penalty brought the scores level.

Muir returned from the bin just as fellow wing Semesa Rokoduguni left the field to fail a head injury assessment before Ford put his side back in front with a second penalty.

Leicester increased their lead when Matt Scott, who returned from Scotland’s international camp in midweek, benefitted from a half-break from Dan Kelly to score.

But Bath remained in contention as a simple penalty from Cipriani made it 20-13.

The visitors matched their opponents in the first half and they looked to have scored a second try. Tigers’ number eight Cyle Brink was yellow carded for not rolling away before McNally forced his way over, but TMO replays showed a double movement from the Bath captain.

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Leicester took their advantage to 10 points within two minutes of the restart with another penalty from Ford.

Bath’s injury woes continued when the impressive Clark required a head assessment, with the highly promising Max Ojomoh replacing him.

They overcame the setback to pick up their second try when McNally forced his way over from close range.

But Leicester restored daylight between the sides when Ford darted over in the corner after an alert Richard Wigglesworth had picked him out with the pass.

Bath still would not lie down, with Cipriani kicking a third penalty, but Ford’s fourth and a bonus try from Cowan-Dickie finally shut the door on their brave effort.

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isaac 1142 days ago

Tigers looking real title contenders this season

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G
GrahamVF 24 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

"has SA actually EVER helped to develop another union to maturity like NZ has with Japan," yes - Argentina. You obviously don't know the history of Argentinian rugby. SA were touring there on long development tours in the 1950's

We continued the Junior Bok tours to the Argentine through to the early 70's

My coach at Grey High was Giepie Wentzel who toured Argentine as a fly half. He told me about how every Argentinian rugby club has pictures of Van Heerden and Danie Craven on prominent display. Yes we have developed a nation far more than NZ has done for Japan. And BTW Sa players were playing and coaching in Japan long before the Kiwis arrived. Fourie du Preez and many others were playing there 15 years ago.


"Isaac Van Heerden's reputation as an innovative coach had spread to Argentina, and he was invited to Buenos Aires to help the Pumas prepare for their first visit to South Africa in 1965.[1][2] Despite Argentina faring badly in this tour,[2] it was the start of a long and happy relationship between Van Heerden and the Pumas. Izak van Heerden took leave from his teaching post in Durban, relocated to Argentina, learnt fluent Spanish, and would revolutionise Argentine play in the late 1960s, laying the way open for great players such as Hugo Porta.[1][2] Van Heerden virtually invented the "tight loose" form of play, an area in which the Argentines would come to excel, and which would become a hallmark of their playing style. The Pumas repaid the initial debt, by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park, and emerged as one of the better modern rugby nations, thanks largely to the talents of this Durban schoolmaster.[1]"


After the promise made by Junior Springbok manager JF Louw at the end of a 12-game tour to Argentina in 1959 – ‘I will do everything to ensure we invite you to tour our country’ – there were concerns about the strength of Argentinian rugby. South African Rugby Board president Danie Craven sent coach Izak van Heerden to help the Pumas prepare and they repaid the favour by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park.

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J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

149 Go to comments
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