Angry Tigers just too Goode

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.

Scroll down to read more:

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.