Bath Match Report

By Barrman
April 27 2015

London Irish travelled down the M4 on Friday for their penultimate away game of the season, against Bath. Though having experienced very different fortunes in the past few seasons, it is a game that most Exile fans would probably put at the top of their wish list for a big 'W'.

As any follower of the premiership will know, it is no secret that some major talent has escaped to Bath over the past few seasons with Joseph, Watson, Garvey, Sisi and Homer heading there directly recently so the motivation for the current Irish crop was clear for all to see... Show them that they made the wrong choice! The general concensus from most was that this would be a straight forward victory for the home side, with them fighting for a home semi final spot (seemingly) with Saracens and the away team with nothing tangible to play for, merely pride.

It was very much a tale of two halves at the Rec on Friday night with a dogged London Irish running out of steam after an excellent first half to a clinical and dangerous Bath outfit.

The first half started with Irish kicking off to Bath, who immediately decided to show London Irish a glimpse of what was to come with some dangerous running from inside their own half. This adventurous style of play along with the seemingly inevitable ill discipline from Irish gave Bath the first chance of points, which Ford duly slotted. 3-0 Bath. A very similar passage of play ensued with the same outcome to leave the scores at 6-0.

Irish hit back after with a penalty of their own from the scrum, however it certainly seemed that this was a harsh call on Irish as there was a strong call for either a penalty try or a normal try, as Tom Guest seemed to dot the ball over the line as Luke Pearce blew for a penalty. Irish certainly felt they deserved more at this point! Unfortunately more indiscipline saw Bath reply straight away leaving the score 9-3 after a quarter of the match.

Bath continued to search for the opening try however resilient Irish defence left them frustrated and only able to add to their score with another penalty after some questionable decisions from Pearce.

Inevitably his patience ran out and Jebb Sinclair was sent to the naughty step for 10 minutes, yet this was in fact the start of Irish's best period of the match as a sensational interception by Chris Noakes on Irish's try line stopped Bath from getting their first score and only a fantastic defensive effort from Anthony Watson stopped Irish from capitalising on the intercept. Nevertheless Irish had the wind in their sails and went on to siege the Bath line before it gave way on the stroke of half time with Tom Court crashing over from short range. Noakes' conversion left Irish 13-12 up at half time and the BT pundits looking very sheepish after completely dismissing our chances pre-match!

Unfortunately there were two halves to this match, and how different the second was from the first...

Bath came out at half time with an obvious point to prove and unfortunately Irish were the ones to feel the full brunt of the force that Bath's star studded team has to offer! This became clear when they went over for their first try after 45 minutes courtesy of Leroy Houston from a scrum 5m out. Things went downhill quickly from here with ex-exile 'JJ' going through after some fortuitous handling and a truly top class finish.

From here the Bath squad depth really started to show as the likes of Garvey, Attwood and Batty joined the fray to inflict more pain to the tired Irish bodies, and Banahan went in soon after to extend the lead. After 60 minutes the bonus point was wrapped up with BT sports favourite Sam Burgess going over.

Dan Leo soon after received a yellow card and Rokoduguni hammered the final nail in the Irish coffin with Bath's fifth try of the half on 71 minutes leaving the scores 43-13. However, a big positive from the second half was that Irish managed to have the last laugh with an 80th minute driving maul try scored by

Blair Cowan, which showed the teams commitment and genuine never say die attitude which has flourished since Delaney has taken charge.

Overall a great start from the team was eventually crushed by one of the countries best teams and a much stronger squad. Some missed tackles and true class were ultimately the difference but definitely some positives to take to Kingsholm next weekend.

Bath Match Report

Posted by: The Craic www.londonirish.org (IP Logged)

Date: 27/04/2015 14:01

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Re: Bath Match Report

Posted by: Finno (IP Logged)

Date: 27/04/2015 16:12

Excellent report...

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