Tag: Geordan Murphy

Trouble for Tigers?

Trouble for Tigers?

Just 1 game into the season and change is already afoot at Welford Road. Following an embarrassing defeat to Exeter in Round 1, Leicester Tigers announced that they had parted company with head coach Matt O’Connor with immediate effect.

This has not been a great time for Tigers; they have not been the superpower they used to be for a number of years now and last year missed out on a place in the Premiership playoffs for the first time since 2005. I would argue that the squad they had last season and this season are the strongest they have had in a while, but in such a competitive league there is no guarantee they will be able to make the top 4 this season. But was now the right time to move on?

Honestly, I would have moved on in the summer. Ever since the popular Aaron Mauger was moved on following making the playoffs with a weaker team and replaced with O’Connor, I have had the feeling that something did not feel quite right at the club. Reports have suggested that players and coaches felt restricted under O’Connor and that seemed to be backed up by Ben Kay speaking on Rugby Tonight. Kay – a member of the Tigers board – also mentioned that they had a review at the end of last season and a number of actions were put into place, which O’Connor had said he could achieve, but following the preseason and the Exeter match they felt that these actions were not being met, so it was time to move on. I really appreciated Kay’s honesty and hearing him talk about how once they had made their decision it would not have been right to wait a few weeks made sense to me.

The important thing now is that the next man up is given every opportunity. Geordan Murphy has been an assistant coach at the club since 2013 and has consistently been in charge of the club in the Anglo-Welsh Cup as well as being in charge for a game against Bath just after O’Connor had arrived. He is Leicester through and through and will want to do everything to bring the glory days back, while he also has a number of other former Tigers players on the coaching staff. I really hope that, barring disaster, Murphy is given the whole season and that making the playoffs does not become the be all and end all in the board’s decision as to whether he gets the job on a permanent basis. One of the areas Kay mentioned that O’Connor seemed to struggle was in the development of young players, something that I’m confident Murphy will be able to do well. Speaking as a fan of rugby in general, hopefully this season will be about performances and player development and then next year they can look to focus more on getting back to winning silverware. Only time will tell.