The Leicester Tigers Academy suffered a 35-3 defeat at the hands of Munster U19 in their second pre-season fixture of the 2018/19 campaign, in Limerick on Sunday afternoon as part of a two-match training tour of Ireland.
An early penalty to Charlie Titcombe saw the Tigers lead their Irish rivals before Munster crossed for their first try in the 20th minute of the match, followed by a second try on the half-time break which was compounded by a sin-bin for Tigers in the final minute of the opening half.
Munster came out firing in the second half and a disrupted travel schedule to Limerick, including a delayed landing and midnight arrival the night before the match, began to weigh on the young Tigers side against their older, more experienced opponents.
The home side crossed for three more to close out the game by 32 points.
Speaking after the game, Tigers Academy Manager, Dave Wilks was seeing the big picture despite a disappointing first outing on their Irish tour.
"We were inaccurate at the set piece and it cost us," he said.
"However, this trip is about much more than our results on the pitch and this game was a good test for our young side.
"We encountered some travel issues on the way here, right up until the very early morning hours of the game which showed, but that's important for the group to see and gain the experience on having to adapt to situations and conditions.
"It's a historic rivalry between the two clubs, Leicester and Munster, but also a great friendship and we wanted to educate the next generation of Tigers players about that.
Tigers followed the fixture with a combined training session with their opponents the day following the match, which involved a crossover of coaching ideas and re-creation of scenarios from the match for the players to run through a second time and understand options available.
The Academy will face Leinster later this week in the second match of the pre-season tour, which England U18s George Martin and James Whitcombe will be available to play in after joining the squad in Ireland mid-week following the recent U18s International Series in South Africa.
Wales U18s and Tigers Academy fly-half Sam Costelow will not join the squad, with the Oakham student rested ahead of a school tour to France next week.
