Ellis Genge says his expectations are high at Leicester

As campaigns go, 2018/19 goes down as comfortably the worst in the Tigers’ professional history. Last-but-one in the Premiership, with the defence in the league, they lost ten out of 15 home games in all competitions. Fortress Welford Road reduced to rubble a splintered squad will scatter, their season over, as the play-offs – once their annual domain – unfold without them. For Genge, this chastening campaign has been an eye-opener. “It has been hard out there in a team that is trying to achieve so much and getting so little out of ourselves. I don’t think people understand how much pressure there was on some of the senior players,” said Genge.

“When we were 11th in the league and in a dogfight they didn’t really know what had hit them so you can imagine at times the cohesion went out of the window. “We tried to stay away from thinking about relegation but I’m sure it was laying dormant at the back of boys’ minds. For us to finish that far down the table and be in the dogfight we were in was quite an experience to say the least. “There’s been some very honest conversations with people who needed to be told. Certain aspects of the club weren’t functioning well enough. Hopefully they get rectified. “The main thing for us is to park this season and move on. We pulled through and that’s all that matters.”

Ellis Genge says his expectations are high at Leicester

Calamity was avoided as Newcastle went down in the end but for a club which has won a record ten English titles it was a grisly flirtation. The obsession with past glories at Welford Road hangs like a millstone around the necks of the current squad. For Genge, the expectation is part of the problem. “Our expectations are so much higher because of what Leicester achieved in the past,” he said. “Everyone always thinks Leicester will finish in the top four. When we missed out by a point last season there was pandemonium and you’d have thought the club was burning to the ground. “

There is a live link with the trophy-laden past in the shape of head coach Geordan Murphy who would probably have been sacked after such a season if he had not been a Leicester legend. The defence for Murphy would be the circumstances in which he took over with Matt O’Connor fired one game into the season. “Geordie did get chucked in at the deep end,” said Genge, speaking to promote Premiership Rugby’s education and employability programme, HITZ. “He’s a young bloke, experience-wise in terms of coaching, and to manage some of the best players in the world I can’t imagine is an easy job – especially when he has me in his ear every Monday morning at 8am giving him all sorts of hassle. I think he’s done a great job especially off the pitch managing the players.” A string of new recruits will arrive in the summer of which the key ones will be forwards. Second rows Tomas Lavanini and Calum Green will be joined by Crusaders back row Jordan Taufua as Leicester attempt to rebalance their squad, praying there is no repeat of this season’s horrors.

Ellis Genge says his expectations are high at Leicester