Sale Sharks 36 London Irish 8

By Whaley Shark
November 16 2014

So it’s back to the Premiership, and a game it would be very useful to win. Yes, we may not have to worry too much with London Welsh looking pretty much doomed already, but the foundations of a comfortable Premiership campaign must be to beat those around us in the table, and Irish are firmly in that category.....  

That said, a bit of early over-enthusiasm gave Irish a lead through a rather soft penalty, although we then got into a bit of a groove and started to exert steady pressure. Eventually that led to a penalty which Danny put in the corner for a five metre lineout. A neatly worked set move almost did the trick, but it turned out OK as Dave Seymour managed to cross a couple of phases later and, with the conversion, we took a 7-3 lead.

This was followed by 20 scoreless minutes in which, although we had a territorial advantage, the error count was pretty high for both sides. The most notable moment was the Irish penalty which came back off the post to preserve our four point lead. Eventually, a Dan Braid break from a rolling maul won us a straightforward penalty, and we moved 10-3 ahead. That gave us some momentum and a sustained period of possession led to the sin-binning of the Irish hooker, David Paice, and a penalty which Danny put into the corner. A straightforward catch and (11 man!) drive gave Dan Braid the try. The conversion came back off the post to give us a 15-3 lead with just a couple of minutes to go.

Irish were rattled now and clearly hanging on for their half time cup of tea, but the restart didn’t go ten metres, giving us possession again. The rest was predictable- a man down, Irish repelled our first attack, but our rolling maul got a head of steam up from a lineout about 30 metres out. Irish pulled the maul down, prompting Sir to give a penalty try and send Luke Narraway to join his teammate in the bin. The conversion was good and suddenly we were 22-3 ahead.

With Irish down to 13 men, we started the second half chasing the try bonus, which finally came eight minutes in after good pressure on the Irish try line as the Irish scrum imploded and the referee awarded us our second penalty try of the afternoon.

At 29-3 down, Irish started to chuck the ball around and the game really opened up. Tom Arscott made some sharp breaks but was unrewarded, and only a superbly-timed tackle by Mike Haley prevented an Irish score in the left corner. As the game went into the last 10 minutes, Irish finally crossed after a good spell of pressure. Even so, we weren’t finished and Nick Macleod, on for Danny Cipriani, exploited an attacking lineout to slide through a couple of tackles and let Andy Forsyth cross under the posts.

Well, you couldn’t really have asked for more than that. A pretty dominant forward performance laid the foundations and two tries in ten minutes, plus the sin-binnings, pretty much saw off Irish by half time. Things I particularly liked were the young players’ performances- Josh Beaumont, Mark Jennings and Mike Haley in particular- and the confidence which you could see flowing through the team as the game went on and they realised Irish didn’t have any answers. A great performance and more of the same, please, lads!