Irish prove too strong for flat Falcons
By Ash C
September 27 2010
After the narrow defeat down at Exeter last weekend, and other results coming in against them, the descent to the bottom half of the table was now in force. With only Leeds below us, this weekend’s game against Irish was a must-win game to enable Falcons to perhaps avoid another regulation scrap.
Yet the Falcons seemed unprepared for the hiding they were about to get – with six tries - four of them rather soft - scored against them in this 46-12 defeat.
Home advantage had always been a strong point, with London Wasps being the last visitors to come here and leave with nothing. However, with Irish cruising at the top of the Premiership, this was not going to be an easy game.
With James Hudson out injured for the next two months, the captaincy was handed to Rob Vickers, and there were only two other changes from the side that missed out on that all-important win last weekend, Andy Henderson and Filipo Levi were welcomed back into the starting 15.
Within the first 15 minutes, Falcons had already let in two soft tries both scored by Irish winger Ojo. The feeling in the back of the South Stand was “Oh hell, here we go again!” Only two weeks previously the Falcons had been two tries down within the first twenty minutes and had turned it around to win the game with an impressive second half. It could happen again – couldn’t it?
Falcons seemed to go through a number of phases deep into Irish’s 22 with the South Stand fans shouting with all their might for a try to be scored. It took a few more phases before Micky Young recycled the ball to Goppeth who crashed over underneath the posts. The conversion was easily added to make the score 14-7. Not bad.
The Goppeth try seemed to have lifted the spirits of the Falcons, with Amesbury having a good showing of the ball but not being able to break through the strong Irish defence in front of him. It did not take Irish long to break through the Falcons’ failing defence, and with one minute to go until half time, they were able to extend their lead to 19-7.
So here we were again, getting beat at half time, but somehow the positive thought still remained that in the second half, the team would come out after a good shouting from Alan Tait and would be all fired up to turn this game around.
However, the second half seemed to go as bad as the first, with the Falcons lacking in discipline and giving away silly penalties when they really should have known better. Luckily, Ryan Lamb was not able to convert his penalty so at least it gave the Falcons some breathing time. Yet it was only a matter of minutes before Falcons gave away two more silly penalties and Lamb calmly stepped up to the mark and converted each – extending the lead to 25-7.
After this point, the Falcons had completely lost sense of what they were supposed to be achieving and kept giving away penalties for silly errors. Irish probably sensed how much Falcons were out of their depth and pinged the players back into the corner instead of going for posts. Irish had passion in them to go for the 4 tries and they seemed determined to walk away with all the points.
Problems at the line-out cost Falcons dear and again Irish were able to capitalise on these errors to add another try which came from Daniel Bowden breaking through the Falcons’ defence, with 55 minutes played, the score stood at 32-7.
It seemed to go from bad to worse when Falcons lost their own lineout. Somehow, they managed to win the ball back from a knock on, however Tait’s wide pass was intercepted by none other than Topsy Ojo who crossed the line easily for his third try of the day. 39-7 with twenty minutes to go.
You would think that Falcons would have learned from the mistake of an interception pass and would try to play simple rugby as opposed to long passes. However, it only took a matter of minutes for yet another long pass to be intercepted by Jonathan Joseph who sprinted under the posts to add another try to compound the misery.
At this point, it was clear that Falcons had given up on a game that was well and truly lost. Although they did manage to get close to Irish’s line and, from the view of the especially placed TV board, seemed to cross Irish’s line and ground the ball, only for it to be disallowed for an apparent double movement.
The only consolation, came with three minutes left to play, when Alex Tait was able to crash over the line to score a try. Manning was unable to convert so the final score was left at 46-12.
This game was a serious wake-up call to all members of the team, it has only been 4 rounds of the new Aviva Premiership and yet Falcons are already 11th in the table. It is simply not good enough and things must improve soon otherwise fans are going to be going to watch the same relegation battles that we have witnessed for the past however many years. The highest position that Falcons have ever been in the modern Premiership table is 6th – huge doubt is already setting in that they will ever be that high again.
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