Angry Tigers just too Goode

Leicester are

within striking

distance of conquering

Europe

again, driven by a

ruthless desire to win

and a compulsion to fight

among themselves.

Andy Goode followed the

game of his life by revealing the

secret ingredient behind the

Tigers’ success — a propensity

to snarl more often at one

another than at the

opposition.

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England’s discarded fly

half cites the combustible

training ground culture as the

reason why Leicester are a

team apart, the X-factor willing

them ever closer to a European,

English and Anglo-Welsh

treble.

2This is a strange club in some

respects," said Goode. "We fight

a lot among ourselves in training.

It’s always a good sign."

What goes on behind locked

doors suggests that the tradition,

enhanced down the years

by the roughest of the big cats,

like Dean Richards and Martin

Johnson, is flourishing as never

before. Goode, whose own fight

with Austin Healey before the

2001 Heineken Cup Final in

Paris did wonders for his

popularity, assumed it was the

same at every other club until

he left on a 12-month transfer

to Saracens.

"One day there was a little

fracas in training," he said.

"Everyone stood back and said

to one of the players involved,

'What the hell are you doing?

That’s not the done thing at

this club.'

"At Leicester we fight among

ourselves every week and then

walk off the pitch. You need

that edge. There is something

about the club which pulls us

through tough games like this

one and that hard mentality

can make all the difference."

That internal fighting spirit

enables Leicester to generate

an intensity which will make

them favourites to emulate

Toulouse by winning the

Heineken Cup for the third

time. Llanelli, like Munster

before them, discovered to

their cost that the English

Premiership is some way above

the Celtic League when it

comes to the hard school of

winning rugby.

The Scarlets came up a long

way short and, unlike their two

previous semi-finals, there was

no hard luck story to be told

about losing as decisively as

the score indicated.

Llanelli knew what they were

up against, except for one crucial

element. Despite their

meticulous planning to find a way round the power of Martin

Corry’s pack, they had no way

of knowing that Goode, a fly

half whose form can swing

from the sublime to the ridiculous,

would play like a dream.

Pat Howard had left him on

the bench, preferring veteran

Irishman Paul Burke for the

Anglo-Welsh final against the

Ospreys eight days ago.

No sooner had Goode slung

his kit bag into the dressing

room on Saturday than

Leicester’s head coach called

the players to a meeting and

delivered a masterly piece of

psychology. Far from reducing

the pressure on his No 10,

Howard deliberately pumped it

up and made a point of doing

so in front of everyone else.

"I said to him: 'Mate, this is

the big deal —the game rests

on you'," Howard said. "Goodey

has had some very big games

on big days and some poor

games on big days. He rose to

the occasion.

"At his best he is world class.

At his worst . . . he knows he

has to work on his consistency."

Apart from missing touch

with his first, skewed kick in

the opening seconds, Goode

hardly put a hand or a foot

wrong. He kicked seven of his

eight attempts at goal, scored

the first try himself and made

the second for Shane Jennings.

Tries either side of half-time

from Llanelli’s Mark Jones and

Matthew Rees obliterated a

13-point deficit before Goode

delivered the killer blow within

two minutes, cutting the

Scarlets to ribbons for Jennings

to finish. Louis Deacon’s

late try, after nine close-range

drives, was vintage Leicester.

Regan King gave Llanelli

flashes of hope but they were

too predictable, too often

running out of space when

Stephen Jones would have

been better advised to kick

to the corners and exploit

Leicester’s weakest suit, their

line-out.