Leicester Tigers and Northampton Saints lose their way in new world order | The Breakdown


Traditional heavyweights are lacking clout as wealthy backers elsewhere discover that bulk is no longer beautiful in today’s faster game

The Thomond Park spectators exhorted their players to stand up and fight before the start of Saturday’s Champions Cup match against Leicester, a year after many of them stood up and walked out as the Tigers completed the first leg of a European double over the Irish province.

This year Leicester sat down and capitulated, not for the first time on the road in the last three seasons. Their director of rugby Richard Cockerill afterwards pointed out that his club, like Munster, had had ups and downs in a decade when the landscape of the game changed.

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