An inauspicious start to the EDF Energy campaign.

By Jeremy O'Gorman
October 4 2006

Another visit to the MadStad, another disappointment. Each time I go to what is essentially a home game for me, there is the expectation that this time we deserve a modicum of equal luck, but as usual the luck is with the Irish.

Unfortunately this time, I am not sure we were unlucky. True, the two tries in the second half did have an element of luck in them; the bounce of the ball took it away from Sarries and towards the men in green; but the game had been essentially lost before that point.

I am of the considered opinion that Kevin Sorrell is the only centre we possess who makes his tackle every time and, when he starts, a few opposition centres on their backsides seem to inspire other team mates. When he doesn’t, then gaps appear in the defence; Horak must have thought Christmas had come early with three or four easy breaks through the middle. The infection spreads to around the scrum, and our normally infallible back-row allowed their opposite numbers to walk all over them.

Sarries started brightly enough, with intermittent rain causing the ball to resemble a bar of soap. Playing in the Irish half seemed the sensible option when bad hands are around and an early penalty followed. Glen started off a fairly impeccable day with the boot with an early 3 points. Saracens then joined in the handling errors to allow Irish to get a scrum ten yards out. Rees skipped around two or three flailing tackles to score. Everett had his only miss of the day 5-3.

We then had around 20 minutes of reasonable Sarries control; pinning Irish in their own half, winning scrums and line-outs. Three kickable penalties ensued, Glen putting them all away, two from around half-way. It was effective without ever looking impressive; sadly we did not look like scoring a try. Unfortunately, Irish then started winning some ball of their own. Horak made a couple of impressive breaks and it only seemed a question of time, before he made one count. It came on 34 minutes; skipping through a couple of half-hearted tackles to score close to the posts; Everett adding the extras 12-12.

Then the lineout and scrum seemed to implode, Sarries incapable of wining even their own ball. Irish put on the pressure. Leguizamon picked up close out and powered his way to the line. Now I don’t think that Faz was to blame for any of the two tries close to the scrum, but playing 3 sixes in your back-row means that not everybody knows where to play; I would have preferred to see Sprout at 8, he seems more comfortable there.

Half-time came. I popped to the bar and bumped into a smiling Simon and HRHRH, happy to chat. Simon seemed convinced that the second half would see better pickings. Seeing HRHRH there, reminded me that it was at the MadStad that we lost his services. That crazy game, with Nicky Little playing at #8 towards the end. I could not remember if it was two or three years ago – memory goes with age they say.

Fortunately, I was late back to my seat in the second half and missed the embarrassment of the charge down and Irish’s fourth try. If fact from where we were sitting, I could not have seen it anyway, with the touchline crowd standing up. With no replay on the big screen, I gather the Irish scrum-half charged down a lazy Glen kick, got the bounce and touched down.
With the game now effectively lost, Sarries did seem to wake up, throwing what ball they had to the wings. Unfortunately, the wingers did not seem to want the ball, with both Penney and Del dropping fairly straightforward passes. Penney’s was more expensive, with Delon Armitage getting boot to ball, which, on another day, would have rolled to touch. Instead, it went the length of the field. A race between Glen and Delon was almost won by Glen, but Irish managed to scramble over for the score. 33-12.

Glen then made amends with another glorious “show and go”, releasing Kameli for his first senior try, but not close enough for Glen to add the extras. Sarries kept pushing, and after a couple of penalties in the corner, they went for the pushover try. Irish dropped it and the referee had no hesitation in walking under the post for the penalty try. Glen added the extras and it was game on at 33-24; with 15 minutes to go

Unfortunately Ben Broster then blocked off Delon Armitage on a fairly harmless chip and chase - was there some family history there? With the home crowd baying for his blood, there was no chance of him avoiding yellow. Everett kicked the points to round off a pretty good performance. It also sealed off the match as a contest. When Mercey came on for the first scrum 2 minutes later, there was the usual look around for who would go off. Faz must have been brought down to earth with a bump as the player Sarries could most afford to lose.

Then the substitutions, most of them showing their replacements how to play. Kevin Sorrell demonstrated the art of tackling. Tomas deVedia showed the art of catching a ball and running with it. Dave Seymour doing his England pretentions no harm at all, running alongside and taking inside passes from centre. I am not sure about de Kock. Moses I felt had played a great game apart from falling from one dummy for the first try, but his box kicking needs to improve.

With the last play of the game, Sarries did throw the kitchen sink at Irish – after all a bonus point was up for grabs. Faz came into his own in this part, popping up everywhere and delivered a lovely miss-pass to put Del away. Now a couple of years ago, I would have put my house on Del scoring from that position, but he did not seem to know what to do, neither cutting inside nor outside - seemingly giving up.

All in all, Sarries deserved to lose, as there were a number of things wrong. Not all of them were down to the players:

• A lightweight pack (a disconsolate Cobus passed us after the warm-up) – you can only play one of Hugh and Ryder at a time
• Jumping in the lineout was at odds with the throwing – we missed at least 3 prime opportunities for scoring and let Irish win the line with overthrown lobs
• Half the backs did not seem to want the ball (Penney, Del, BJ)
• Most of the rest did not seem to want to tackle
• The back–row were all 6’s and nobody seemed to know who was doing what job
• Handling was generally poor

On the other hand, we did come back strongly after each Irish score and seemed to be trying until the end:

• De Vedia definitely wants the ball and his place back
• Kameli looks the part in a bit of space
• With each phase of play Faz comes more and more into it - by the 9th breakdown, he was throwing out try-scoring passes to players who were not running on to the ball.
• Faz can step up into Glens slot when Glen is not available, or on the other side
• Scabs runs well with ball in hand
• Glen is great with the ball to feet and has the best dummy I’ve seen for a while

All we really need to do now is to sort out who is the best inside centre: BJ for prospective crash ball, Kevin for tacking or Faz for distribution.


SCORERS: London Irish: Tries: Rees 2 (13min, 41), Horak (34), Leguizamon (40), Flutey (51). Conversions: Everitt 4. Penalty goal: Everitt (63). Saracens: Tries: Ratuvou (15), penalty try (60). Conversion: Jackson. Penalty goals: Jackson 4 (4, 20, 24, 28).

SCORING SEQUENCE (London Irish first): 0-3, 5-3, 5-6, 5-9, 5-12, 12-12, 19-12 (half-time), 26-12, 33-12, 33-17, 33-24, 36-24.

LONDON IRISH: M Horak (rep: J Bishop 70); D Armitage, G Tiesi, R Flutey, S Tagicakibau; B Everitt (rep: S Geraghty, 75), R Rees; N Hatley (rep: T Lea’aetoa, 24), R Russell (rep: D Coetzee, 54), R Skuse, N Kennedy, J Hudson (rep: A McCullen, 65), K Roche, O Magne (rep: S Armitage, 60), J Leguizamon (rep: P Murphy, 62).

SARACENS: D Scarbrough; R Haughton, K Ratuvou, B Johnston (rep: T de Vedia, 57), R Penney (rep: K Sorrell, 79); G Jackson, M Rauluni (rep: N de Kock, 70); K Yates, S Byrne (rep: F Ongaro, 64), B Broster (sin-bin, 63-76), H Vyvyan, T Ryder, A Farrell (rep: T Mercey, 69-76), B Russell, P Gustard.

Referee: B Robertson. Attendance: 7,172.