Leicester vs Munster, match report: Ed Slater increases the pressure on Chris Robshaw as Tigers battle on

Eddie Jones did not for a moment expect the debate over Chris Robshaw’s future as England captain to dominate the aftermath of what was supposed to be a private chinwag over seasonal wine and nibbles at Twickenham, but that was only the half of it. There is now a feverish discussion over Robshaw’s place in the national team, thanks in no small part to a frank and forthright European display by the Leicester skipper Ed Slater that could not conceivably have been more public in nature.

Slater was quite something yesterday evening, his ultra-direct approach with and without the ball being precisely what the new England coach is looking for as he pieces together a new red-rose side for the neurotically-charged Calcutta Cup trip to Murrayfield in early February. Two points are worth remembering here: firstly, it is firmly established that Robshaw is not Jones’ idea of an open-side operator and is therefore a blind-side flanker or nothing in the international context; secondly, Slater played this game at… blind-side flanker.

“Ed is pretty good at No 6, just as he’s a pretty good second-rower when we need him to be,” said Richard Cockerill, the Midlanders’ rugby director, after watching his side take a significant stride towards a Champions Cup quarter-final place with a second victory over the most passionately committed of the Irish provinces in the space of eight days. “He has a real edge about him and he’s a true Leicester man. That’s why he’s skipper.”

On the subject of what Jones did or did not say, in open forum or otherwise, about the possibility of the Northampton hooker Dylan Hartley taking on the England leadership role, Cockerill also had a view. “Tom Youngs is the form hooker in the land by a country mile,” he said of his successor, albeit half a dozen times removed, in the middle of the Tigers’ front row. “Maybe he should captain England. Actually, I don’t care about the captaincy, although Ed or Tom could do the job. What I do know is that Tom should be the first name on the team-sheet for the trip to Edinburgh. There’s no doubt about that.”

If it has never been easy to argue with a man whose bullet-headed belligerence at the heart of the red-rose scrum made the England pack such a difficult proposition for even the very best opposition – Cockerill particularly enjoyed his close-quarter rough and tumbles with the All Blacks – it was impossible to disagree with him here. Youngs was covered in his own claret in the early stages, but this drove him onwards and upwards at such a velocity, he might have ended the match in the International Space Station. Hartley, who is not playing at all right now, will have to perform out of his skin on his return if reports of his own impending elevation are not to prove inaccurate.

Jones was watching the game from the posh seats, and if he turned up hoping to see some England hopefuls in the middle of a firefight, he was granted his wish. This was a hard old game, to say the very least, and it spoke volumes for Youngs and Slater that they prospered against such pumped-up rivals as the Munster hooker Mike Sherry and a visiting back row in which the athletic Robin Copeland, the scavenging Dave O’Callaghan and the implacable C J Stander all caught the eye.

There were frequent outbreaks of pushing and shoving, not to mention verbalising of the aggressive kind. Dan Cole, the senior tight-head prop in England’s failed World Cup campaign, had a prolonged dispute with the Munster half-back Conor Murray, during which both men said plenty to each other. You might even have called it a Socratic dialogue, provided you believe Socrates was built like a brick outhouse and was fond of inviting his opponents round the back of the Parthenon for a proper sorting-out.

Amid the pandemonium, Slater made the first significant scoreboard breakthrough with a try from a ruck three minutes into the second quarter. Freddie Burns, back between the shafts at outside-half following his recovery from a fractured jaw, added the extras and also nailed a penalty, but a pair of on-target strikes from the tee by his opposite number Ian Keatley left the Irishmen well in touch at the interval.

It was not until the contest hit the hour mark that the big turning points kicked in. The first of them came when Lachlan McCaffrey and Ben Youngs allowed their wires to become crossed at the base of an attacking scrum – an error that gave Francis Saili, an unusually substantial centre from New Zealand, the chance to hoover up the loose ball and go the length. Astonishingly, the attack was neutralised by the Leicester full-back Telusa Veainu, who somehow forced Saili into an inside pass, and the wing Adam Thompstone, who followed up with a try-saving tackle on Simon Zebo.

Had Munster completed the try they seemed certain to score, they would probably have gone on to win, thereby keeping themselves in the hunt for a knockout place of their own. As it was, the second and final five-pointer of the night went to the Leicester wide man Vereniki Goneva, who followed a clean midfield break from the impressive Peter Betham and gathered the newcomer’s clever pass off the deck to touch down near the sticks.

There is something about the Tigers this season that suggests they are climbing back towards the sunlit uplands after a spell in the dark pit of despond. They have players as good as Mathew Tait, Manu Tuilagi and the two Williamses, Owen and Mike, to come into the side when they are all fit and well, and with the former All Black centre Aaron Mauger upping the pace and breath of their attacking game, they look to be a match for anyone in England. A certain Mr Jones will surely have noticed.

Scorers: Leicester – Tries Slater, Goneva; Conversions Burns 2; Penalty Burns. Munster – Penalties Keatley 2.

Leicester: T Veainu; A Thompstone,P Betham, M Smith, V Goneva (S Bai 72); F Burns (T Bell 66), B Youngs (S Harrison 75); M Ayerza (M Aguero 44-49 and 70), T Youngs (H Thacker 71), D Cole (F Balmain 57), M Fitzgerald (T Croft 51), G Kitchener (D Barrow 36), E Slater (capt), B O’Connor, L McCaffrey.

Munster: A Conway; K Earls, F Saili, D Hurley (L Gonzalez Amorosino 74), S Zebo; I Keatley (R Scannell 65), C Murray (T O’Leary 59); J Cronin (D Kilcoyne 65), M Sherry (N Scannell 69), J Ryan (M Sagario 74), D Foley, M Chisholm (B Holland 69), R Copeland, D O’Callaghan (J O’Donoghue 51), C J Stander (capt).

Referee: J Garces (France).