Review of the Season #1 - Septmber & October

By BrianC
May 25 2006

The pre-season friendlies are out of the way. Three games, three victories; over Quins, Ulster and Exeter. The excitement as the new season approaches is palpable.

Review of the Season - Part 1: September & October

The site has it's busiest ever day on the Thursday before our first match. This is against Leeds in the Double Header at Twickenham. The bookies have them as favourites for this game but there is a quiet confidence amongst the LI supporter community. The squad has been significantly strengthened for this season. Word on the block is that things are gelling well under our new Director of Rugby, Brian "Skippy" Smith.

Saturday comes, it is a glorious day. The sun shines at Twickenham and not only do we beat Leeds 11 - 27, we pick up a try bonus point in the process. In her match report, Catts got the cream of the Irish!, Mrs Goz sums up the feelings of most; "All in all, it was a fantastic start to the season." 

The mood on the board is a mixture of elation and caution. Elation that we won a game the bookies had tipped us to lose and caution not to get carried away on the basis of one performance. In a thread entitled Some game!  Jon_R puts things into context. "First league game I've seen them win!! We got half season tickets last Christmas and ...... 5 home losses in a row."  

Our next game is our first of the Season at the Madejski, we play Worcester. The added incentive for us to win this is the knowledge, given how the other results have gone, that a victory will take us to the top of the table. Alas it was not to be. Continuing our poor run at the Madejski, we went down 15 - 20. Reading Fatboy's report, Bend over and push, outlines how we were beaten up by the Worcester pack. "We are going to have a roller coaster season. Big highs and fairly depressing lows."

Despite the defeat people are not too downhearted. Liamk's thoughts from yesterday... thread carries a cross section of opinions. "Overall still vast improvement on last year. Six trys in two games and looking much more likely." Greenham Phil worries in If this is the new LI....... "I'm seriously worried!!".

The next Friday we travel up the M6 to Sale for a game that many of us felt was going to be one of the toughest fixtures of the season. Sale's Mark Cueto is going for a record of scoring tries in seven consecutive Premiership games. This he gets as Sale beat us comfortably 29 - 3. Dr V's match report What a Cha(m)bals details a scrappy game. "I’ve used the word scrappy a lot so far to describe our performance. And quite rightly so. If we really have ambitions of a league position outside of the relegation dogfight, we have to play a lot better than that."

The scale of this defeat, our heaviest in five years, subdues the messageboard. Oxonrob asks How good is our pack? "I find it hard to accept that we get mullered up front two weeks on the trot, consoling ourselves that we were up against two of the best eights in the game. Were we?" Big Andy surmises that Last weeks loss was a bigger blow than tonights... "We should beat teams like Wuss, My tip for the top is Sale said that ages ago, not surprised at tonights score or loss." 

Away from rugby there is much rejoicing as the England cricket team win the Ashes.

We play our last game of September at home against Bristol. After two defeats and with our abysmal home record this is being billed as a 'must win' game. This match sees the return of Saturday rugby to the Madejski and there is some speculation over how big the crowd will be. In the end it was a disappointing crowd of just under 7k who saw us win, although only just, 24 - 22 having gone in at half time 21 - 9 up. OxonRob penned the match report, Deadly Dodge in a dodgy game. "We so nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, a worrying habit from last season, doubly so for we had all been promised a new dawn."

Perhaps the feelings of those on the site were best expressed in spike62's thread ahh a win. "21-9 up and only winning 24-22? Still a long way to go", "The sad thing is the better side nearly lost, again! Still relieved with the 4 points". September ends with us 6th in the table.

October begins with the new format Anglo-Welsh Powergen Cup. We are in a tough pool with Saracens, Cardiff and our first opponents Wasps, who we play at the Madejski. Whilst we lost this game 26 - 30 it was one of the best London Irish performances for some time. The match saw a stunning debut by our new fly half Riki Flutey, this I covered in the match report, The Fluteyture's Bright. "Riki Flutey's debut with us was little short of sensational. Not only was his kicking accurate and inspired, his ball handling was crisp and I was also delighted to see that he was doing what every number ten should do, calling the plays, instructing players where to be and what to do."

Greenham Phil starts a thread entitled Magic Flutey!!. In this he harks back to his aforementioned post, "I made a post after the Wuss match that "if this is the new LI, I'm worried". After today I'm not anymore. We showed real courage, fighting spirit and flair without the bizarre risk taking we saw against Wuss."

Our next game is also in the cup, away at Saracens. In the lead up to this game there is some speculation over the format of the competition and the strength  of team we should put out. Our exit from the competition is pretty well assured the day before we play as Wasps beat Cardiff earning a bonus point along the way and is confirmed on the day as we go down 32 - 13 in Watford. StevieJ's match report, It’s a Knock Out, outlines how we effectively lost the game in the first ten minutes, conceding two tries.

One feature of this game was Delon spilling the ball as he dived over the line to score a try in the closing minutes. It didn't effect the game but concerned some. As balpw2 put it in his thread Dive of Glory, "Much as I want to see Delon score lots of tries in future, I hope its the last time we see his Dive of Glory over the line. As I tell my minis, "two hands on the ball" and "place the ball on the ground"".

For the only time in this month our attention turns to the Premiership as we travel to Franklins Gardens to take on Northampton. As with our previous encounter we were narrowly beaten 25 - 23 in the dying minutes of the game. The main area of controversy surrounding this match was the amount of added time. As Mrs Goz report in House (and Gardens) of Pain, we were 23 - 18 up on 80 minutes. Somehow the ref found ten minutes of stoppage time, in the last one of which Ben Cohen scored a try against us. "Do I think we were robbed? – no. I think we gave it away. We had our chances but unlike Saints, we didn’t take (all of) them." With this loss we drop one place in the table to 7th.

Not surprisingly the amount of added time was the main subject of conversation on the site post match. Laimk expressed some anger in a thread titled Countdown clocks "Its about time (excuse the pun ) that the GP enforced the use of the countdown clocks. While we were on the wrong side today, its not fair on ANY team to lose after TEN minutes of extra time." Even the Daily Telegraph weighed in with an article titled Irish are counted out in time-keeping farce. 

Next stop is Southern France as we take on Pau in the European Challenge Cup. About a hundred of the faithful made the trip. As usual those of us back home were dependent on SMS updates from the ground. Not only did Gnoo provide these, she also wrote arguably our most detailed match report ever, I'll drink to that!, from which we learnt, blow by blow, about our 13 - 20 win. At the end of this piece she worries about the tenor of her report; "I have tried to write everything I noticed and hope I have not put a too negative spin on the match. It is just that one tends to notice the bad things more easily than the good. At the end of the day a win away in France is fantastic."

In the following week Mr Dean speculates about our poor second half performances. Shaw-shank weighs into the debate with the observation, "Have we still got a defensive mindset - i.e. protect a lead rather than go out to win the second half as well?" SteveS disagrees, "What concerns me far more is whether we are addressing obvious weaknesses in our game." News also arrives that JFK has picked up a two week ban after being cited in the Saracens game.

The last Sunday in October saw us take on the minnows of our pool, Parma, at the Madejski. We are expected to bury them and true enough we do, by 64 - 0. Big Papi supplied us with the match report for this game; Stan the man smokes the Parma hams. "All they can do is treat the game seriously, try to play with the same passion and commitment that they would in a GP game and try to score a few tries. This they did and did well."

We end October in reasonable spirits and with mixed fortunes. We are out of the Powergen Cup, seventh in the Premiership and are set for a battle with Agen in December to see if we can make the semi of the ECC.