Getting Back To Normality

I was very surprised to see that I could purchase a match ticket when they went on sale to the general public, as I am no longer a season ticket holder. I would assume that our first home game would attract most season ticket holders, but we are leaving in some extraordinary times when going to see your team in the weekend is no longer a priority for many supporters. Some may be in Tier 3 and unable to move, some may be isolating and some others may think it is just too dangerous to be out there with the nasty virus still at its peak.    

 I was really nervous before this game, I am not familiar with Brentford and obviously not with the stadium. As I know myself quite well, I was assuming I would get lost on the way and in fact I did, but it didn’t stop me from getting there about 45 minutes before kick-off. I had taken some drums with me, and I was trying to locate the drummers section. After asking a steward I was directed to the far end of the North Stand, which was the wrong end. One supporter was pretty annoyed at seeing my drum and he told me that his season ticket was in that area, so he would write to the club and complain about having drums nearby. I know the club wants drums, the players want drums and many supporters enjoy them, but there are some out there that really detest them. Thankfully for this supporter I ended up 4 blocks away from him in N126. Then it was a question of sitting next to Griff, our other drummer. My seat was in row 4 and his was in row 12, but in my mind it would make sense if we were both sitting together in the same row while keeping a safe distance of 4 empty seats between the both of us. I happened to seat in someone else’s seat who wasn’t too happy at all and it took a lot of convincing that he should take my seat. 

The ground is obviously brand new and it looks pretty cool. When I first went to the Madjeski Stadium in the early 2000’s I was convinced that one day we would regularly sell out, but it never really happened and a much smaller stadium is a better fit for us right now. Let’s hope that one day we have the problem of having to move again because it is no longer big enough. I found the stewards quite friendly and understanding. 

The game kicked off with Irish kicking, turning over Sale ball and after a couple of phases we were 5 metres away from scoring but we knocked on in the tackle. It was a very promising start, although we didn’t get so close to the line until the last few seconds of the first half. The rest was just defending in our own half, which we did remarkably well. The first ever rugby points at BCS [Ed: in front of a live crowd] were scored by Sale on the 9^th minute thanks to a penalty from MacGinty and the first ever try [Ed: again...] was scored by Janse van Rensburg after De Klerk took a quick tap penalty awarded from London Irish going down in the scrum and passed over to van Rensburg who scored with very little opposition.

[Editors Note: PANS appears unaware that Irish played Tigers at Brentford last week - first rugby points went to Leicester's Zack Henry while the first try was by Curtis Rona]

Paddy Jackson, who had a very decent game, scored out first 3 points on the 26^th minute. Our first and only try came from a good line into space from Jackson with the clock in red and Rona scored, which after the successful conversion left the scores of 13 – 13 at half time. I don’t think a single London Irish supporter would have complained about that score. Quite a few though may have something to say about the decision on a tackle to Robertson that was taken to the TMO for a suspected foul play as the Jono Ross clearly hit Matt Rogerson on the head so hard that Matt had to come off missing the rest of the game. We could see a few videos on the stadium screen and in my opinion from one angle it looked completely brutal and a clear red card, but from a different angle it looked like at least one arm was engaged in the tackle. The referee Christophe Ridley, along with his TMO decided that not only it wasn’t a red card, it wasn’t even a penalty. I haven’t seen it on TV, but from what I saw at the ground I agree with the referees’ decision. The other TMO decision went our way, as Postlethwaite charged down a kick inside Irish 22 and he was an inch or two short from scoring a try, then repositioned the ball on the try line which the TMO ruled as a double movement, or whatever you call it nowadays. Funnily enough one minute later we scored our only try of the game, so instead of being game over at half time it was game on. 

The second half started badly for Irish with Van der Merwe scoring after 2 minutes of the restart from a maul coming from a line-out inside the Irish 22. Irish tried hard and played well, but they didn’t score any points in the second half and the end result was 13-21 for Sale. Even though Sale were the better team and deserved their 4 points, Irish were really unlucky not to get a losing bonus point that they deserved from this game. 

At the end of the game a Brentford and London Irish fan gave us a banner saying BACK IN TOWN that he insisted we display on our home games. I would say that the best thing about this game is apart from the rugby itself we are slowly getting back to normality. It was great to see some familiar faces that I haven’t seen for about a year. As I am writing this today 90 year old Margaret Keenan has received the first jab which will drastically reduce Covid related mortality in our elders, let’s hope that we can see more rugby and get back to normality.