Fitness and honesty top of Hudson agenda at Tigers

Fitness and honesty are top of new head coach Tom Hudson’s agenda as Leicester Tigers step out for their first game in the inaugural PWR Up Series.

The East Midlands side faced a tough debut season, finishing bottom of the table for 2023/24, but Hudson insists the club are taking their learnings seriously to build a sustainable, competitive outfit.

Tigers are bidding to get their second campaign underway with a bang against Sale Sharks this Saturday at Mattioli Woods Welford Road Stadium, and a full-blooded pre-season has prepared them well.

“In our review of last year, we acknowledge that if you were to look at our 60-minute scoreline, it was really good and competitive, but then after 80 minutes the score runs away from us,” Hudson said. “We put a lot of that down to fitness.

“If you want to know a non-negotiable – the girls over the off-season had to maintain their fitness levels.

“Naturally you would never expect that of athletes, you would expect them to be close to peak fitness mid-way through the season, they would then have their downtime and then regenerate that fitness.

“We couldn’t go back two or three steps, so we set fitness markers. If they didn’t match them when they came back in, they weren’t allowed to play rugby until they got back to that fitness marker.”

Hudson is no stranger to Tigers having got his start in rugby through their academy before beginning his coaching journey with the Cheltenham Tigers women’s team.

The 28-year-old Newcastle native’s impressive CV also includes a spell as head coach at Ampthill Rugby and involvement in Tigers’ overseas partnership club KL Tigers in Kuala Lumpur.

After ten years away from the set-up, Hudson is keen to create a culture of honesty and perseverance as he makes his PWR debut.

“I say this a lot in interviews, but rugby is the most humbling sport that you can imagine,” Hudson said. “We have to be honest with ourselves, we have to humble ourselves.

In case you missed it...

An exclusive interview with Head Coach Tom Hudson is now available to watch here 👉 https://t.co/JghmlMbXRE pic.twitter.com/quJpYEuojB

— Leicester Tigers Women's (@TigersWomens) August 18, 2024

“There are far better teams than us in the competition with far more experience and a wealth of knowledge and we acknowledge that.

“If we embrace that and are honest about it, it means we’re not surprised by it.

“So, if we don’t fall into that trap and we understand what it would take to compete, beat or cope with these teams then honesty would be right up there.

“There’s a good expression – you don’t know what you don’t know.

“We learnt a lot from last year there’s no doubt about it but there’s also a lot of learnings so if we’re honest and we embrace that then we’ll just roll with the punches.”

The weighty history and expectation of Leicester Tigers does not escape Hudson, but being a part of the women’s game is a challenge he’s excited to take on.

And the club’s ties with local team Lichfield Ladies are a strong area of focus for the coach in ensuring the growth and progress of Tigers Women in the years to come.

“There’s a huge history and responsibility attached to the badge,” he said. “We’d like to go one further as a women’s section and create our own history.

“It’s all excitement. It is so exciting to be part of something that is fairly new within professionalism so there’s so much excitement, growth, low hanging fruit and small wins that will accelerate this sport in this country.

“Not everything’s an on-field target. Lichfield are our pathway club. They’re in their first Championship season so looking after that, making sure they’re competitive is essential.

“There’s nothing like it in the area that we are in. Our girls are inspiring the next generation week on week.”