Volume being the key word.
It is easy to cheer when things are going well, when you’re on the cusp on success. It’s easy (well, easier) to play in those circumstances too.
It is harder when your backs are against the wall (and your forwards too), when the reputation and pedigree of your opponents threaten to strangle your positive mindset and when you know there are a few on the outside who would actually enjoy seeing you squirm.
Go back to the final five minutes against Toulouse, with Tigers pegged back on their own line, with a four-point lead, with Toby Flood still in the sin bin, with the visitors scenting blood, with a Heineken Cup future hanging on the line.
Then feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end at the memory of the ferocity of the team’s defence in those closing stages. And the ferocity of the entire support around them.
The Tigers groundstaff performed a brilliant job to get the game on, and Tigers performed brilliantly to win it, overcoming the giants of Toulouse to top another ‘pool of death’ and reach the quarter-finals.
The volume in the stadium in those last few minutes was simply stunning. The players knew they were not alone.
Never mind 16th man, the stands provided 17th, 18th, 19th and probably 20th.
It did not take a detective to work out why The Tig and the rest of the supporters were as hoarse as Tesco’s by the end.
Who needs any more words to a club song?
Seeing Louis Deacon lead the players in their appreciation at the final whistle said everything we needed to know about what the players had felt at that stage of the game.
They were never alone. And they won’t be alone against Toulon in the quarter-final either.
