London Irish vs Narbonne Preview

Who needs swords?
By Billy Hamilton
January 8 2004

London Irish enter the second round of the Parker Pen Challenge Cup again against French opposition. This Sunday we take on Narbonne at home with the away leg being next Saturday night.

Parker Pen Challenge Cup

London Irish v Narbonne
Sunday 11th January 2004 1500 hrs
Madejski Stadium
Referee: Stefano Mancini (It)

Narbonne v London Irish
Saturday 17th January 2004 1930hrs
Parc des Sports et de l'Amitié
Referee: Hugh Watkins (Wal)

We will be hoping for a comfortable victory at home so that we have the actual and psychological advantage in the away game. While we have emerged from the holiday period with two defeats our opponents have had one defeat and a win in the same period.

Last Saturday they had a narrow 19-18 victory over Montpelier. An indication of their relative strength might come from their 25-11 defeat at the hands of Montauban on the previous Saturday.

We have an advantage of having played full strength game against Narbonne in the pre-season. On Friday 10th August we played in Montpelier and lost by 33 points to 27.

The Narbonne side contains only three internationals. Props Julio Garcia and Martin Scelzo; and No.8 Gonzalo Longo have all represented Argentina. One familiar face in the Narbonne line-up is former London Irish player Glenn Delaney. Other notable player include Mark Blair, a former Armagh, Ballymena, Ulster and Ireland A forward, South African Joe Gillingham, a James Cockle look alike and Peter Short, a former Leicester and Newport player.

The away game will be played at the quaintly named Parc des Sports et de l’Amitie (Sport and Friendship Park) which has a capacity of 10,000. Around 4,000 attended the pre-season friendly. Ticket prices range from 10 euros behind the posts to 24 euros in the centre of the stands.

This will be a real ecumenical game. It will be the clash of Orange versus Green. Narbonne’s home strip consists of orange jerseys with a single black hoop and black shorts. The change jersey is black with an orange hoop. I will resist the temptation to comment further but I can assure you that Orange will not be my preferred colour for 160 minutes over the next ten days.

The reward for the winner of this tie is a quarter final against the winner of the Pau v Connacht clash. These games take place on the two following weekends and I hope that this will not be my last European preview this season.