Takeaways as young England locks outmuscle Sarries : PlanetRugby

Following a 19-10 victory for Leicester Tigers over Saracens at Mattioli Woods Welford Road on Saturday, here’s our five takeaways from the Premiership clash.

The top line

A thunderingly confrontational match at Mattioli Woods Welford Road saw three-try Leicester Tigers beat their deadliest rivals by 19-10 in an absolute classic of a winter arm wrestle.

Tigers’ tries came courtesy of Dan Kelly (10′), Matt Rogerson (33′) and Harry Simmons (60′), who touched down for his first Premiership five-pointer, but it was a match that was decided on scrum superiority over any one other thing and Tigers stayed true to the roots of their DNA, delivering a match-winning performance in the set-piece.

With Mike Brown contributing brilliantly in a masterful defensive performance on the wing and Solomone Kata showing just how much he’s added to the Tigers midfield in terms of straight line carry, the story of the match was a one per cent edge in physicality towards the hosts in every aspect, in a performance that takes them to seventh in the table, three points away from the qualification quartet above them.

The little things

Saracens are developing a terminal issue in terms of their discipline.

In a game of such fine margins in play, to see a penalty count of 16 v 5 in Tigers’ favour was always going to turn the match towards the home side. Rather bizarrely, Leicester also made 15 handling errors, but as Nick Easter commented in his preview of the game, the Saracens scrum, shorn of nine players through unavailability, conceded five of their 16 penalties at the set-piece battle, often giving them momentum in attack.

The Saracen illegality took away any momentum they tried to create, and with Leicester Tigers’ front five absolutely dominating the set-piece and the close quarter exchanges, the hosts fed on the litany of coach killing errors that their visitors made, with James Cronin excelling in every aspect of his play and Ollie Chessum putting in a lock’s classical mid-January performance to win player of the match.

One of those penalties saw Maro Itoje yellow carded for not retiring before making a tackle on Jasper Wiese, who looked for all money to have taken more than the allowed five metres before Itoje intervened. It was a harsh call and an even harsher card, one perhaps based upon things that had gone before, but it was undoubtedly the turning point of the match as Tigers scored seven points during the England lock’s absence.

Head-to-heads

Wherever you looked on this pitch there was Test standard head-to-heads everywhere and ironically, Saracens shaded a number of them.

At 13 Elliott Daly and Dan Kelly both had their moments, with Daly sprinting through the middle of the park to set up a brilliant try in the first half to send the impressive Tom Parton over. For Kelly’s part, he nailed one score and was unlucky to see another chalked off for a fluffed grounding as both English centres excelled.

When Itoje was on the…