Sarries LDH report
By Jeremy O'Gorman
September 6 2012
So it was the start of the season at the London double Header and can I just say that the experience this year was the best I’ve ever had. Not sure what it was; decent seats probably the most important as there were few idiotic non-rugby supporters around.
In fact all the Sarries supporters around me were knowledgeable and chatty. Or had the Paralympics kept the crowd down to a reasonable level, so that getting to the toilets or the bar was a pleasurable and quick experience. Oh and we had some decent rugby as well, three of the four sides getting a 4 plus tries bonus point and for the first time ever (I think) Sarries started with 5 points. The first match (Wasps Quins) was about as good as you want from a neutral point of view. With Quins deciding they were going to tie both their legs together as a handicap for the first 20 minutes. In that period they made 2 passes, the second of which got turned over and lost both lineouts. With Christian Wade on fire and Quins only defending in the 12 channel, Wasps were 40-13 in front just after half-time. It was noticeable that Quins started playing when Danny Care went off. A lazy clearance for a charge down and rather odd defending meant with 20 minutes to go we had a game on at 40-25. There was only one side in it now and with 10 minutes to go it was 40-39. A decent scrummage on the 10 yard line led to a penalty and Evans a reasonably straightforward kick for the final score of 40-42. After all that excitement it was back to normality as Sarries took the pitch. Two fairly extraordinary events took place in the first 5 minutes. The first was that Irish were given a penalty almost from the kick-off and when Tom Homer strode up to indicate the posts I assumed we would be 3 points down. He missed from well inside his range, not even making the distance. Sarries quickly moved downfield and shortly afterwards had a penalty on halfway. Drilled inside the 22 the lineout produced good ball with Sarries driving towards the posts by Mako who was well deserving of his later Man of the Match award. His inside pass to Borths of all people left the skipper crashing in under the posts and slaps all round. That was to be the high point as Wayne Barnes brought us all back for the TMO. As well as the try being disallowed for a forward pass, Wayne rubbed insult into injury by commiserating with Borths afterwards. “You don’t score many” he was heard to say on Reflink. That was actually the most interesting thing about the first half as Irish were both inept with ball in hand and mostly offside when Sarries did finally get it. Wayne wasn’t finished with the TMO though and to stop him falling asleep with the rest of the crowd got him to refer to a non-arms tackle by Trevira…. Trevor (10 minutes) on Hodgson and a petulant nudge by Ashdon on Shingler (also 10 minutes). Goode slotted Charlie’s penalty; Homer missed again from Ashdon’s. Homer went on to miss another as well as slotting one very close to the posts for Irish’s 3 points at half-time. With the play following a pretty regular pattern, it certainly wasn’t riveting for the crowd. Sarries played the kick-chase if they were in their own half and ran it if they were in Irish’s half in possession. After a couple of running phases Irish would be penalised for offside and Charlie would kick the points. This happened 3 times for a 12-3 lead. Irish obviously hadn’t read Smith’s pre-match poke at Sarries as they were not so much running with the ball than hobbling sideways. After about 20 passages of play when the ball went nowhere against a tight Sarries defense, Irish would kick it to Goode and a bit of ping-pong would ensue until Irish repeated the aimless 20 phases again. The crowd got bored mostly (apart from the Sarries supporters who were very happy with events unfolding) and tried Mexican waves, before not bothering to come back for the second half. They should have done, as the second half was as good as the first game. In two five minute spells, Sarries score two pairs of tries for the bonus point and in the rest of the game withstood all the attacks Irish threw at them with almost no loss of ground. Even when Wayne decided to make Sarries play with 14 after getting bored with Irish ball being slowed down at almost every breakdown. I’m sure Sarries were being professional at it, but Irish seemed not to put enough men into the rucks to get quick ball. Anyway, let’s cut to the scores. The first was a good move after a couple of forward punches down the middle with Mako again to the fore, some quick interchanging of passes saw Tompkins put Chris Wyles into space. He might have gone himself, but switched the pass to Chris Ashdon on his inside shoulder who sauntered over. Shortly afterwards Ashdon was the provider as he made a great basketball style tip-pass to Brad Barrit in space who crashed over by the posts. Charlie had no trouble with either conversation and passed 2,000 premiership points with the 17 points he kicked in the match. With the game seemingly won at 26-3, Sarries did seem to go off the boil; going down to 14 as Kelly Brown was given a card for not rolling away (it was the 5th such offence) didn’t help much. It wasn’t until the replacements rolled on with 10 minutes to go that Sarries put Ashdon away for a more traditional wingers try round the outside; leaving Charlie his longest kick of the day. Then with 5 minutes to go replacement Niels Mordt was the recipient of a flowing move that brought up the bonus point. Happy days and I left Twickenham for once very satisfied. On the way out of the ground I bumped into a bloke from my local with a bunch of lads from Bishops Stortford on a stag day; but that’s another story. LINE-UPS Saracens: Goode; Ashton, Tomkins, Barritt, Wyles; Hodgson, Wigglesworth; Vunipola, Brits, du Plessis, Borthwick (c), Botha, Brown, Fraser, Joubert. Replacements: Mordt for Goode (70), Short for Tomkins (63), de Kock for Wigglesworth (50), Gill for Vunipola (63), George for Brits (64), Nieto for Du Plessis (55), Sheriff for Botha (70), Wray for Fraser (57). London Irish: Homer; Ojo, Joseph, Tagicakibau, Yarde; Shingler, O'Leary; Lahiff, Lawson, Halavatau, Skivington, Evans (c), Gibson, Treviranus, Fisher. Replacements: Moates for O'Leary (66), Aulika for Lahiff (53), Griffiths for Halavatau (57), Low for Skivington (63), Gray for Gibson (57), Danaher for Fisher (53). Not Used: Blaney, Geraghty. Referee: Wayne Barnes (RFU). Attendance: 63,102
If any other publisher knows how to fix this, please do so.
TT
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2012:09:11:09:39:11 by TonyTaff.
Great report on a good day out.
