Munster’s Champions Cup rivals Leicester Tigers have set their sights on reaching this year’s final and banishing the bad memories from last season, according to club captain Tom Youngs, writes Simon Collings.
The Tigers reached the semi-final of last season’s competition only to be narrowly defeated 16-19 at home by French side and eventual runners-up Racing 92.
Two days to go . . . the #ChampionsCup is coming pic.twitter.com/DoMBEbQSOJ
— Leicester Tigers (@LeicesterTigers) October 12, 2016
This year’s Champions Cup has led to a reunion with Racing for Leicester after being drawn alongside them, Munster and Glasgow Warriors in Pool 1.
The quartet of teams makes for undoubtedly one of the hardest groups on paper, perhaps only rivalled by Pool 3’s offering of Saracens, Sale Sharks, Scarlets and Toulon.
However, despite the challenging set of fixtures ahead of the Tigers, club captain Youngs insists his side are determined to challenge for European glory by making the final in Edinburgh in May.
“I think looking back last year we made the semi-final, the year before that we got to the quarter-final, so it was nice to get a step further,” said Youngs.
“We will be looking to go one step further this year now. It is a tough pool, but you have got to play some tough sides in Europe to win it.
“We are looking forward to the battles we will have there in the group and we will go from there.
“I think as as you say looking back at the semi-final last year it was a great occasion, but we probably let ourselves down a little bit. We made a lot of handling errors in the game.
“I think a lot of guys would have got a lot of good experience from Europe last year. There were guys who came into the squad last year who hadn’t had a lot of experience of Europe and they have got that now. They have got that bug for it now too.”
As well as suffering a heartbreaking defeat to Racing in the semi-final of the Champions Cup, Leicester also fell just short in the Aviva Premiership last season.
The Tigers were knocked out at the semi-final stage there too, that time going down 44–17 to eventual winners Saracens.
However, as they kick off their European challenge this year with a trip north of the border to Glasgow tomorrow night [FRI], Youngs is adamant the Leicester squad are still full of belief despite last season’s near misses.
“We are all looking forward to that Glasgow challenge first up and then obviously Racing straight after that,” said Youngs.
“So I think we are in a good spot and we have got a better squad than we did last year. We are in a good spot and we are ready to go, we are looking forward to it.
“There is always that belief and we will start with the first match first and go from there. But you have got to have that belief in yourself first. If not, you’re not going to succeed at all.”
