Turnovers sting The Exiles

Coming into this game off the back of 2 losses in the LV, I was hopeful that with the re-introduction of our 1st teamers would galvanise the team to win against a Wasps side that had been inconsistent so far this season.

The key for us would be to take our chances and make sure we used our set piece to dominate a side who aren’t really known for their strength in the line out or scrum in particular.

So to the 1st half and both teams are battling to get on top. Lamb misses an early penalty from the touchline and both teams are giving away penalties on a regular basis. Walder slots a penalty for Wasps 6 mins in to give them the lead but a reply from Lamb a few minutes later restores parity. Wasps score the first try of the game when Ben Jacobs made the first of his many impressive runs and managed to evade 4 tackles before touching down to the right of the posts. Walder converts and its 10-3 to Wasps. I am thinking that we need to get back into this game pretty swiftly. 7 mins later and we do just that. from a scrum, Chris Hala’ufia breaks blind and smashes through a couple of tackles before off loading to Dodge who sprints to the line and scores a good try. Conversion is missed but we are back in the game and are now putting plenty of pressure on Wasps. We get close to scoring again but Payne is penalised and sin binned for being offside. We take the 3 points but just before half time, Walder slots another 3 and makes the score 13-11 to Wasps at the half. Can we make the most of the sin binning in the second half.

The answer is yes we can as almost immediately, Irish attack and after a sustained amount of pressure, the ball squirms around just in front of the Wasps posts and ends with Dan Bowden scoring a try. As I understand there may have been a hint of a knock on from an Irish player prior to the try but we will take it and the conversion makes the score 18-11 to Irish. Now to the frustrating part of the game as far as I am concerned... After a penalty from Walder shortly after the try, Irish must have got into the Wasps 22 on at least 4 occasions with good opportunities to score and take points however we continually get turned over by Wasps. 2 in particular when Steff makes a break for the line only for the ball to get knocked out of his hand close to the line and when we create a 3 on 2 on the right hand side and Kennedy goes for the line instead of passing to Topsy who was free and then subsequently gets turned over. My thoughts at this point are that if we don’t take our chances we will pay for it. And how right I prove to be... Wasps make a break deep from their half with Jacobs prominent again and after Worsley is stopped just short of the line, the ball is spun out and Steve Kefu scores. Again Walder converts and suddenly Wasps are 23-18 up and have the momentum. Irish are pressing again trying to get back into the game and after coughing up another turnover, Jacobs makes another break and offloads to Varndell who has 30 yards to run in unopposed. Coverted again and it looks like Irish won’t even get the bonus point as the score is 30-18 with 5 mins to play. However irish press from kick off and Paulica Ion scores a try under the posts after good work from Richard Thorpe and Lamb drop kicks the conversion to make the score 30-25 with less than a minute to play. I am thinking we could still win this but at least we have a losing bonus point... um actually no we don’t! We try to run the ball from our 22 and the ball is somehow held up and Wasps are awarded the scrum. Irish concede a penalty from the scrum and Walder kicks the 3 to make the final score 33-25 to Wasps.

Disappointing to say the least as we had countless opportunities to score tries but didn’t take them and thats how fine the margins are in this game. If Kennedy had passed to Topsy, if Steff had held on to the ball, we would be talking about a bonus point win and not a defeat with nothing to show for it. My man of the match was Chris H for continually getting over the game line especially the way he set up Dodge for the 1st try. We will need to up our game and take our chances to have a sniff of getting something from the game at Franklins Gardens on Friday night. Even though we scored 3 tries, we still need to be more clinical especially with the fixtures over the next 2 months. Come on you Irish and let’s put things right on Friday.