Monday saw a hive of activity for Leicester Tigers as 6 re-signing announcements were made as well as 4 new signings, quite rightly causing high levels of excitement for supporters and watching media alike. The 6 re-signings saw a nice blend across the squad as promising youngsters James Whitcombe, Dan Kelly and Ollie Chessum committed to new contracts, alongside Tigers stalwart Dan Cole and our excellent overseas additions in Nemani Ndolo and Jasper Wiese, both of whom have quickly become fan favourites in the short time they have been with the club. New signings always bring a wave of excitement, and Monday was no different with Scottish International Darryl Marfo joining Tigers for the rest of this season, along with South Africans Francois Van Wyk, Marco Van Staden and Eli Snyman all joining in the summer ahead of next season. It was the last 3 that caused many heads to be turned, as they will bring our South African contingent up to 8; and with more signings yet to be announced, this number could increase further. This did lead to questions being asked of Tigers and Non-Tigers – is this a problem, and are Tigers forgetting their strong history of an English connection?
In my opinion, the short answer to both questions is no. The longer answer is still no, but with an explanation, so let me go through why I am not concerned. As soon as the new signings were announced, it was inevitable questions were going to be asked about the recruitment strategy, and many conclusions were quickly drawn – that Leicester were the new Sale or Saracens and they were abandoning their academy structure etc. Whilst easy conclusions to make, it does rather ignore the rather talented and rather large crop of youngsters that now feature regularly in Tigers’ colours and are now crucial members of Steve Borthwick’s squad – Heyes, Reffell, Steward, JvP, Chessum, Martin, Henderson, Kelly and Whitcombe. Of those, Heyes and Martin have impressed so much, they have now been involved in England training camps or in Martin’s case, making the bench in England’s previous game against Wales. JvP and Steward can both count themselves unlucky to not have caught Eddie Jones’ eye as both have been superb since coming into the first team ranks. All of these players are 23 and under, and all look like they have promising futures ahead of them. It also ignores those who may have featured less but are still in the squad and continuing their development – Simmons, Smith, Porter, White, Potter for example. It is easy to see the exciting overseas players like Julian Montoya, Ndolo and Wiese amongst others, and think that is where Tigers’ priority is, but to ignore those afore mentioned youngsters does them and their talent a disservice.
It is with these youngsters in mind, that the new recruitment strategy makes a lot of sense. Too often, Tigers have reverted to making signings of “squad fillers” whether they be British or come from overseas, in order to help pad out the squad, all in the name of adding depth. These have tended to be on shorter-term deals, the wrong side of 30 and not stay for long which has helped contribute to Tigers’ fall from grace. This has meant that not only have they not improved the first team, they have instead acted as “blockers” to any youngster previously coming through. Many a promising young players has left Tigers in order to get improved game time as a result of this. The difference with the signings Leicester are now making are that they will all go straight into the first team environment, they all should add something extra to what is here already. By doing so, it should have a double benefit of a) improving standards and overall quality of the squad, and provide greater competition for places, as well as b) make it a lot easier to develop and play our talented young players.
Whilst the second point sounds strange there is a method here. Tigers have a long tradition of bringing through young players and turning them into stars. We all know the names – Moody, the Deacons, Croft, Cole etc. All had one thing in common – they all were able to develop and improve whilst playing alongside quality, international forwards. Certainly Louis Deacon will have learnt from packing down with Martin Johnson or Ben Kay, Moody and Brett Deacon with Martin Corry and Neil Back. It is with this in mind that Tigers’ strategy makes sense. If you ask Joe Heyes and James Whitcombe, I am sure they are loving scrum sessions with Julian Montoya. It suddenly makes Ollie Chessum’s life a lot easier to just play his game at 6, whilst Van Staden and Wiese do the damage with their call-carrying and being a nuisance at the breakdown. Ask JvP, and I’m sure he is looking forward to improving his game whilst playing behind a pack that is dominating the opposition. The point being, is that is now a lot easier to give a starting berth to one of our youngsters as they will now slot into a pack that is already doing its job through its senior members, and allow them to just concentrate on doing their job. Too often in the last couple of seasons, young players making their way in the game, have been chucked in and expected to just perform. With all the will in the world that just is not going to work as productively. Whilst we all would love the pack to be the England team’s pack like it was with Moody and Deacon, salary cap pressures just does not make that possible anymore.
There is another upside to this recruitment strategy. By adding improvements at the top end, and allowing youngsters to get more game time, over time this adds greater depth to the squad, and allow Borthwick to start a proper rest and rotation selection policy. For me, one of the best Tigers teams I saw was in Pat Howard’s 2nd year as Head Coach in 2006/2007, who was able to target the treble that year by implementing a pretty successful rotation policy. Howard created a squad that had quality internationals and first team players, back up members who would have walked into the first team of everyone else in the league, all supported by a talented set of youngsters including Crane, Croft and the Youngs brothers. It meant that when Tigers started approaching the latter stages of the league and cup competitions, his squad was fresher, less burnt out, but crucially all capable of playing the big games. Frank Murphy for example, started the Premiership final that year, yet was arguably 3rd choice, but slotted in and performed his role well. Whilst combinations and consistency is important, so is rest and recovery in the modern game. Too often Tigers’ teams have got to a season’s end and just look shattered. This should prevent this from happening again.
Overall, despite the headlines, the new recruitment strategy will not lead to any abandonment of the academy structure, nor will it mean that young players won’t have the opportunities to play. If anything it should mean greater development and allow for Tigers to be challenging for high honours, all with a spine of local academy graduates at their core. Not to be sniffed at all. Anyone for biltong?