Sale Sharks 15 London Irish 3

By Whaley Shark
December 21 2013

Well, it was certainly a filthy night last night, with a strong gusting wind and, from about twenty minutes in, heavy driving rain. Just the sort of night to turn a match into a complete lottery and risk derailing our little run of form……

 

 

 

And, indeed, it was largely London Irish for the first twenty minutes, with play mostly in the Sale half though, to be truthful, no massive threat from the Irish. The deadlock was broken when the Irish scrum was penalised, something we were to see a lot more of as the evening wore on. Danny Cipriani’s kick to touch gave us a lineout on the Irish 22, the forwards got a decent roll on, then released the ball and Danny’s cross-kick took a horrible bounce and popped up nicely for Tom Brady to gallop in down the right.

Our second try followed a few minutes later. We nicked an Irish lineout on their 22 and, in stopping our rolling maul, Irish gave us a penalty. Danny kicked for touch and the forwards rolled over from the lineout to give Dave Seymour a try. We continued to look dangerous for the rest of the half, with Tom Brady running from deep, all the way to the Irish 22, but the final pass going behind the man and into touch. Irish came to life a bit in the last few minutes before half time, but errors and ill-discipline confined them to the middle third of the pitch and we turned round 12-0 ahead. Whether that was enough of a lead to defend in the second half was the main topic for debate over the half time mocha cake.

As it turned out, we kept going into the second half and Danny first missed a penalty kick, then slotted one closer in, won as the Irish scrum was penalised again. Irish exerted some sustained pressure in this period of the game, but solid defence kept them out during their one period of real pressure. We fought back with sharp running from Dwayne Peel and Rob Miller but couldn’t build on those bright moments and, with a bit over ten minutes to go, Irish got on the scoreboard with a penalty kick.

We gained the ascendancy after that, pitching camp in the Irish 22 and turning the screw on a creaking Irish scrum. Nevertheless, we couldn’t actually score and Sir clearly felt we didn’t deserve a penalty try. Finally, an Irish penalty let them relieve the pressure. We turned the ball over in midfield and Danny hoofed it into touch to end the game.

It wasn’t very pretty but I thought we did quite a job on Irish. In difficult conditions, we kept control for most of the game, restricting Irish to just a couple of spells of pressure. We played intelligently, I thought, and our forwards provided a really good platform, with the upper hand in the scrum, competing very effectively at the ruck, and making a mess of their lineout on occasion. I’m not going to go for a single Man of the Match- I thought it was a well-deserved win with all the forwards mucking in with aggression and commitment. Well done all, and bring on Tigers next Saturday!