How Leone Nakarawa has already made Racing 92 the team to beat in the European Champions Cup

The 6ft 6in lock showed some amazing offloading skills during the win over Leicester

Nakarawa is already a player of the year candidate (Getty)

Next Saturday he will be Munster’s problem but Leone Nakarawa’s display against Leicester was so extraordinary that plotting how to stop him should occupy the minds of every team with serious pretentions of winning the European Champions Cup.

The Racing 92 lock, capped 44 times by Fiji and formerly of Glasgow’s parish, produced a display so complete and yet so different it will live long in the memory of those who witnessed it on Saturday. Not least Leicester’s shell shocked players.

Rarely can a game of professional team sport have been dominated to such an extent by one individual player. It laid a marker for every team in this tournament and Leicester will have to work out a way of preventing his extraordinary ability to off-load out of the tackle when they host the Parisians at Welford Road in the return fixture.

Matt O’Connor’s men knew what was coming but were powerless to stop it. Ten off-loads, a try and two assists hardly scratches the surface of the impact he had on the game and the message the 6ft 6in Fijian sent out to the rest of the competition. One round in and Racing already possess the player of tournament.

“We talked about it during the week that he is a hell of a player,” Leicester hooker Tom Youngs said. “However tall he is when he puts his hand in the air he is that much taller at offloading. That’s very hard to stop. We didn’t do it particularly well today. I thought he offloaded well. The nice sunny day probably helped him and he gave Racing a few opportunities to get in behind us which is always hard to stop.”

Asked if there is anyone else like him in world rugby today, Youngs replied: “No probably not. He is probably the best off-loader. He is unbelievable.”

Two-time champions Leicester will take plenty of satisfaction from leaving Paris with a losing bonus-point and can look forward to taking on Castres at Welford Road next Saturday.

Nakarawa is a giant on the field (Getty)

Considering their disastrous European campaign last year - which ultimately ushered in O’Connor’s latest stint in the east midlands and ushered out Richard Cockerill as director of rugby – they can now look forward to the rest of the pool with a degree of confidence.

Having been crushed by Glasgow and Racing in consecutive games last year, Youngs is happy that pride at least has been restored.

“Those two weeks were probably the worst in my career to be honest,” he said. “They were dark, dark times but we got through them and we are definitely going in the right direction now.”

Winger Jonny May will start next Saturday looking to make it eight tries from eight appearances having finished off a sweeping first half move against Racing after being fed by a world-class pass from Australia international Matt Toomua.

May and centre Matt Smith were both guilty of dropping the ball with the line at their mercy as somehow Leicester prevented Racing from inflicting an old-fashioned thumping despite their obvious dominance.

Tom Youngs admitted Leicester had been planning for Nakarawa all week (Getty)

They remain a far cry from the great Tigers vintage of the late 1990s and early 2000s but the current side is at least on an upward curve, which it certainly was not last year.

“We are probably more organised than we were last year,” Youngs said. “No offence to the coaches last year but that’s probably the reality. We are a better team. We have signed some good players.

“We have a good half-back combination and then you put Matt Toomua in and Jonny May on the wing and it starts to open up more. There are some really good passers to put some width in the game for us. That’s what we tried to do.”

O’Connor’s men may not be world beaters yet, but they appear to have turned a corner after some of the most humiliating defeats in the proud club’s history last season.

To be fair, Nakarawa will embarrass a few more teams before this tournament is over, you suspect.