The Season Starts Here ! Llanelli Preview

By GTD
October 17 2006

Well let’s hope so anyway !! It’s almost here. What we’ve all been waiting for. Yes, after much talk and deliberation the Heineken Cup comes back to the Madstad this weekend with a Friday night fixture against the Llanelli Scarlets.

The approaches to any big match this season have been surrounded with one big question – which Irish team will A) be picked and then B) show up. Whilst the injury list is not new news it is key news to us at the moment and hopefully a certain Mr.Flutey won’t be added to that list following his early departure from the Sale game.

There’s no doubting Llanelli’s early season form has surpassed anything Irish have delivered. With them sitting 2nd in the Magners League table with 2 games in hand on leaders Ulster only 5 points behind them. They’ve had wins at home over Leinster and Glasgow and away over Connacht and the Dragons. In fact their only defeat in that league came on the opening day of the season away to Ulster.
Irish slipped to 9th in the GP on Sunday with ‘a performance’ against an electric Sale who are my tip to win the GP again at a stroll. As RFB has pointed out quite rightly the 3 games we have lost have been against Wasps, Sale and Bristol i.e. THE form sides in the GP at the moment and we’re in the middle of an injury crisis.

Their performance to date in the Anglo Welsh has seen them beating Quins at home but more recently and perhaps more interestingly losing to Newcastle in a Friday Night Fixture. This was their last fixture and should leave them fresh after a couple of weeks off versus our much publicised 5 day break.

When you look at Euro rankings we edge that debate with Irish at 10th and Llanelli at 20th. Not sure that the last 6 games would give the same result!

When you look at key players the most exciting section of their team to watch would seem to be the 9/10/centre combo of the Welsh and British Lions pairing of Dwayne Peel and Stephen Jones with Regan King outside them at centre – an exciting Kiwi with experience playing for Stade Francais and the Waikato Chiefs. Let's hope Messrs Flutey and Mapusua have a clue or two about what he's all about.

From an Irish perspective we need to hope that the passion that has filled our performances, good and bad in recent seasons returns by the bucket load this Friday as we send our visitors packing back down the M4 whence they came starting our 06/07 Heineken Cup campaign with a well deserved win.

Come on the Underdogs !!!!