Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Leicester Tigers showed they will possess some serious bite in this year’s European Cup after they shocked the Ospreys to claim a thrilling draw.

The Welsh outfit were 26-8 up away at Welford Road and looking good to produce an early shock in Europe’s premier club competition.

But the Tigers, two-time winners of the Heineken Cup, are made of stern stuff and rallied to claim a share of the spoils with a superb second-half display. And the club’s coach Richard Cockerill said the victory proved his side will be hard to beat this season.

“The players have to take credit. The spirit of the players today was fantastic,” Cockerill said. “We pride ourselves on having people who want to play for us and not for the money.

“You can buy a team but you can’t buy spirit.

“The club demands the boys play and work hard. We don’t have people here who don’t put in the work.”

The Tigers, already decimated by injuries, lost four more key players before kick-off and found themselves 26-8 down late in the first half.

The visitors were nothing short of brilliant in that time as they stormed ahead with tries from Shane Williams and Tommy Bowe - plus a faultless kicking performance from teenage fly-half Dan Biggar, who finished with a deserved haul of 22 points.

But Billy Twelvetrees, a late replacement for the injured Dan Hipkiss, got the revival started.

The young centre added to Johne Murphy’s early try, before Argentinian winger Lucas Amorosino and then super stand-off Jeremy Staunton also both went over to earn the Tigers a share of the spoils.

Leicester have not lost at home in over a year and the Ospreys doubtless left Welford Road thinking of what might have been after wasting a golden opportunity.

Ospreys boss Scott Johnson admitted the Welsh side will look at the clash as a great chance missed.

“If you had offered us two points prior to coming here we’d have taken it but we are totally disappointed,” Johnson said. “We controlled the scoreboard for large parts of the game but it came down to the fact we couldn’t get quality ball to play off often enough. Without quick ball you can’t play football.”

Elsewhere, Toulouse got off to a great start with a 36-17 home victory over Sale.