It's small mistakes that ruin a game.

It seemed in advance that this was going to be an exciting game; second versus third, with both teams missing a few players and their replacements with a point to prove. Unfortunately it was a boring game, ruined by the scrummage. There were too many of them in the first place; Irish especially with some unforced forward passes. Mr. Small seemed incapable of controlling them; they often took three or more resets to get started and often disintegrated into pieces straight afterwards. Very tedious.

Lastly, they ended up with a large number of penalty awards that effectively decided the game. Sarries were lucky that most of theirs were in kicking range; Farrell knocked them over, Irish got more tap-penalties and those that were full were out of range.

Still it started well enough, with Irish using their bigger bulk in midfield to blast through the hole left by the injury to Brad Barritt. Garvey in particular seemed keen to repeat the exploits of the mighty Chesney. He burst through two fairly high tackles but was slowed enough to be grabbed from behind. Still the pressure told and Homer was able to slot over a simple penalty on 6 minutes. A worrying start was clawed back soon afterwards with Farrell slotting over the results of a scrappy scrum, but Irish kept pressing and soon the first big incident of the game. 

 Irish were attaching on the Rous side and around the 22 a tackle was illegally slowed down and Small’s arm came out. The Irish scrum-half seemed content with that and allowed the ball to roll out of the ruck. Smit saw what seemed a golden opportunity and grabbed the ball. He had taken no more than 3 steps when pulled back with a sharp blast on the whistle. Small reached for his pocket and pulled out a harsh yellow card for stopping Irish playing the ball. My view was that Irish had accepted the kick at the posts and were not in a hurry; they certainly would not have taken a quick tap. Homer stepped up and somehow missed the kick. I heard after the game he had flu and should not have been on the pitch. Just as well from a Sarries point of view as the game was won on missed kicks.

The next 20 minutes for me seemed to be Irish’s chance to win the game and they didn’t take it. For the first 10 whilst Smit was off; Sarries played better than whilst he was on the pitch. Adrenaline seemed to kick in and play was mostly in the Irish half. Two penalties, one from a massive scrum, the other from coming in at the side in a rolling maul took the score up to 9-3 before Smit returned. This seemed to spur Irish into two massive attacks, but from both they ended up empty handed. In the first, they were camped on the Sarries line for around 5 minutes until a player was isolated and pinged for hanging on. Sarries cleared to half-way and when the resulting line-out was not straight, duly obliged with another massive scrum to win a penalty and a line-out in the Irish 22. I’m not convinced the defending here by Irish was quite legal, but no penalty was awarded and the danger cleared.

Quickly returning to the Sarries line another sustained period of Irish pressure was repulsed and a knock-on led to another scrum and another home penalty enabling the clearance to halfway. Sarries were finally able to hang on to the ball for a reasonable period of time and this led to probably the best bit of play from them. A lineout drive again seemed to be impeded, but the ball was rolled towards the east stand for a couple of phases. It seemed to me there was an overlap out wide initially, but the ball wasn’t shipped fast enough. Over-compensation in defence meant the ball was quickly slipped back towards the Rous and with little room, Farrell slipped in a little grubber kick for the corner. It was perfectly weighted as the Irish defender was unable to deal with it, but Short overran the ball as he tried to dive on it and lost control. The TV official ruled no-try and the half ended.

We all felt that the score was a good return for a half when we seemed under the cosh and expected Sarries to stretch away in the second half. But it was not to be; Sarries seemed happy to kick the ball away for territorial advantage and Irish’s running into the midfield was negated by the inclusion of Botha / Kruis to shore up the defence. There were a couple of penalties awarded in kickable positions, one for each side; both taken to keep the score at a six point margin before Sarries scored again for a 9 point lead to make the game seemingly safe with fifteen minutes to go. To be honest it seemed that Sarries were more likely to score in the second half, not least as Irish were running off their own 22 for most of it. They did make breaks, but only to the home 22 before the possession changed hands and they were back to the starting position. The replacement scrum-half when he came on in particular was slippery and seemed to always be a challenge.

Sarries’ two chances were both from attacking lineouts and were reasonably close together mid-half. From the first Strettle came off the first receiver and took a lovely inside pass weaving past both the first and second lines of defence. He seemed to be over, but a good covering tackle held him up just short and we were unable to finish it off. The second seemed more clear-cut when a nice little grubber to the corner was caught by Joubert in the air and diving for the line. The Irish defender seemed to grab hold of him before the ball and clearly in the air, but it seemed difficult to avoid and I for one didn’t have an issue with this. Ernst finished slightly short of the line and was not tempted to make a second movement but instead made the ball available to be driven over. It certainly seemed to be, driven over and grounded but on the advice of Mr.Maybank a reversed penalty took place for a shoulder charge by Steve Borthwick. A little harsh.

Irish having no bonus point made a concerted effort with 10 minutes to go. After a couple of darts by the replacement scrum-half who seemed their player of the day there was a series of pick and goes close to the line. From one of these Mr. Small went to the TV replay and somehow Paice had made it over. He certainly made it over the line, but on the replays I saw the ball was firmly grounded on Jamie George’s chest. Still it was given and suddenly it was game on with 4 minutes to go. Irish however failed to make the conversion and now behind by 4 points had the uphill struggle to score another try. Another Small scrummage did for them, as the constant resetting took the clock down from 3:26 to 0:12 by the time the ball came out. Two phases later Steve Borthwick managed to get his hands on the ball in a ruck (probably illegally but who cares) and Sarries kicked out for the win 

A win is a win is a win, but we will have to play better next week to stand any chance against Ospreys       

Saracens: Goode, Maddock, Wyles, Powell, Short, Farrell, Spencer, Stevens, Smit, Nieto, Borthwick, Botha, Wray, Saull, Joubert.

Replacements: Strettle for Maddock (6), Taylor for Short (69), George for Smit (56), Gill for Nieto (49), Kruis for Botha (51), Brown for Wray (59). Not Used: Du Plessis, Baldwin.

Sin Bin: Smit (11).

London Irish: Homer, Ojo, Ansbro, Spratt, Thompstone, Bowden, Hodgson, Corbisiero, Buckland, Ion, Kennedy, Garvey, Danaher, Gibson, Hala'ufia.

Replacements: G. Armitage for Homer (41), Allinson for Hodgson (51), Dermody for Corbisiero (53), Paice for Buckland (51), Rautenbach for Ion (53), Evans for Kennedy (51), Treviranus for Hala'ufia (70). Not Used: Jarvis.

Att: 6,240

Ref: Andrew Small (RFU)