The St Patrick's Day Party
By Sir Burger
March 24 2014
The St Patrick’s Day Party: the highlight of the calendar for the London Irish faithful. Plenty of fun off the pitch and in recent years on it as well. Since 08/09 only on one occasion have Irish failed to come away with the win: the 2011/12 clash with Leicester.
There have been plenty of happy memories along the way: a goal-kicking masterclass from a very young Tom Homer; nilling Sale Sharks; a drubbing of a newly-promoted Exeter side. Even last year’s icy affair with Worcester was entertaining in its own way. Unfortunately, the product on the pitch this year was not quite up there with the efforts of previous seasons. Bath are a quality outfit who look certain to make the top four this year and although Irish showed plenty of heart for most of the game, the players appeared to lose energy towards the end, with the final scoreline perhaps flattering Bath.
Irish started the game the better of the two sides. Geraghty’s passing game looked to be on song and the forwards were carrying well. David Paice running through little Peter Stringer was a particular favourite. You could hear the crunch from where we were sitting! Unfortunately, a badly-timed yellow card for Matt Parr allowed Bath to withhold early Irish pressure. There were plenty of talking points in the game, but in terms of momentum, I cannot help but feel that Parr’s yellow card may have been the most significant. A series of attacking plays that looked almost certain to yield an early crucial score, nullified by a harsh yellow card. Garner did not have his best game with the whistle and this was one of a series of calls that left a sour taste.
Bath, as a result of this were able to pull away into a halftime lead, despite some fine digging by Topsy Ojo to sneak the ball onto the line, under a pile of bodies. Based on Garner’s usual level of pedantry, I have to admit I was surprised he did not check this decision with his TMO, although I was not complaining at this stage!
Again, Irish started the second half the better of the two sides, spinning wide passes out to the wings and looking fairly incisive. A miss-placed pass from Geraghty to Yarde sadly let Bath off the hook and allowed Bath to quickly move into a 20-13 lead with a series of penalties. The biggest talking point of the game came shortly after this, however, with Nick Abendanon taking advantage of a clear obstruction on Treviranus by Dave Attwood, to put Anthony Watson through to score a game-turning try for Bath. The Garner decision to consult with the TMO before ultimately ignoring him anyway has been much talked about. However, the body language of the Irish players as a result of this try was clear for all to see and took the wind out of our sails.
The remainder of the game can be fairly quickly skipped over, with Irish ultimately slightly capitulating and apart from a brief period of pressure from which Chris Hala’Ufia drove over the line, Bath dominating the majority of play and pulling away for a final score of 44-23.
In spite of this, there were some positives. The scrum held its own for large parts of the game against two international props, while Skivington, Rouse and Cowan had great games in the line-out. Unfortunately the backs did not quite have the same edge as Bath’s and with all of the focus of Brian’s recruitment going into the forwards for next season it will be interesting to see how the backs line up next year. Hopefully Eoin Griffin can bring something a bit different to the midfield and the threat of a fully fit Tom Homer’s goal-kicking may allow our phase play to be less interrupted by offences from the opposition. Ultimately the pride with which the players perform fills me with optimism going into the future, but sadly the day was a bit of an anti-climax. The St Patrick’s Day game is a great occasion for the club and I hope that it long continues, but it was really disappointing to see so few fans stay behind to give Declan Danaher the send-off that he deserves. This, coupled with a flattering scoreline in Bath’s favour left a bit of a sour taste. St Patrick’s Day games are seen as a great opportunity to convert the thousands who come along for a booze-up each year into supporters who will come along to every match. I don’t think yesterday’s game quite delivered in that respect. Hopefully, with new signings still to be announced and the optimism that currently surrounds the club, there may be more luck on that front next year.
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Not our finest hour or, for me, the best day out. There was something very unsatisfactory about the whole affair that left me feeling somewhat despondent and sad.
Have just re-watched the game and another positive is that I thought Jebb did very well when he came on. All of the commentators on BT were also fairly positive about us and praised Brian and Glenn for sending out a team that had good intentions to play with adventure. They mostly seemed in agreement that the Watson try knocked us for six and we saw the red mist a little. Discipline, as ever, seems to be our problem.