Another LBP at home

So far Irish had managed to get home losing bonus points against the likes of Quins and Sarries, while our trips away to Newcastle and Leicester were narrow victories. This was another home game where at least from my point of view, we would be happy with a LBP against current Permiership champions Northampton Saints.

I headed early to the Madstad or whatever it is called at the time you read this as I was going to attend a supporters meeting hosted by the club. After driving for about 10 minutes I get a call from the wife saying that I had left the wallet at home, so back home it is and heavy traffic meant that I arrived to the Madstad at 2 instead of 1, so I missed that meeting. I get the drums in and take my seat while I watch both teams warming up. I notice that Dorrian, Geraghty and Noakes are getting about 90% of their kicks while Myler is missing a few and getting quite annoyed about a suspected cross wind. I was hoping this would carry on during the game, but unfortunately it didn’t, as from what I recall both kickers missed a couple of kicks.

I better stick in my caveat early, as I need to tell you that I didn’t take any notes during the game. I am writing everything from memory and Alzheimer’s runs heavily in my family, so if you are looking for an accurate version of the events you are better off finding some media that covers London Irish.

Irish started the game well, with an interception from Shane that in other occasions would have led to a try, but referee Matthew Carley saw a knock on from Shane that aborted the Irish aspirations. Although I have watched and played rugby for over 25 years, in every single game there are one or two occasions that I fail to understand the referee’s decisions. In this particular game my scratching of the head went into double figures. It seems to me judging by the vociferous complaints by supporters in my vicinity that I wasn’t the only one not understanding Mr Carley’s decisions. I do understand that if you collapse a maul you are committing a penalty offence, but what if the maul hasn’t been collapsed? That is still a penalty in Mr Carley’s eyes, which led to the only try of the game by England international centre Luther Burrell towards the end of the first half. Until then the score was just 0-3 to Saints, which was a true reflection of a close game in which defence prevailed over attack.

It was 10-0 at half time. Irish did not do enough to win the game, but at least they won the second half 12-9 in a game with continuous interruptions in which we failed to see any of the running rugby and the feast of tries that we witnessed in our last home game against Sarries. This was only the second time since Northamton returned to the Premiership in 2008 that Saints have failed to take a bonus point from London Irish. Also no yellow cards from either team, but the Saints front row got told off a number of times by Mr Carley once he noticed that the Irish scrum was far superior to a Saints scrum that was lacking Alex Corbisiero and Dylan Hartley.

In my honest opinion neither team played particularly well, and the highlight of the day was again the Lagan in the cowshed, great band that got the punters dancing and singing along.