By Shawshank
December 14 2015
A surprisingly dry and mild day promised excellent conditions at the Madstad for an entertaining encounter for a London Irish side bent on revenge for their quarter final defeat against Edinburgh in last season’s cup.
Much debate pre-match on The Craic on whether we should rest the main players for this Edinburgh double-header, so that they were fit to play v Saints on Boxing Day – did the Challenge Cup really matter…?
Tom decided, rightly I think, to play a strong team to try to get an all-important confidence-boosting win. Shane was fit to start at 10, and Fenners had finally come off Tom’s naughty step to play on the wing, and Conor Gilsenan got a start at 7 – although it was a bit of a surprise to me that Joe Trayfoot has seemingly been consigned to Xmas shopping duties for the squad after having 2 fine games.
Another key issue was whether Tom, Grant and Clark would continue to be ‘suited and booted’ for the match a la Dai Young, or whether, heading into the wet winter months, they would ditch that apparel and go for the full ‘match-day experience’ look of Toby, complete with his ‘all-terrain’ gigantic shorts.
No doubt in a respectful nod to the sad passing this week of Mr Rumbold of Grace Brothers (RIP), Tom and his crew delighted at least some by continuing with the full Captain Peacock look.
But this was bad news for poor Dr Geoff Cross, who had to continue his main squad role this season of cleaning and buffing-up their heavily-soiled Church’s brogues after the coaches had done the warm-up out on the pitch.
The first 10 mins saw Irish concede a stream of penalties, and the Edinburgh fly-half Greg Tonks slotted 2 good kicks to take a 6-0 lead. With the crowd getting a tad restless with a few ‘here we go again’ thoughts springing up, out of nowhere on the half-way line did Fenners produce a run so sublime that he could have been Jerry Guscott reincarnated.
He weaved in and out of tackles, and accelerated towards the try- line but was hauled-down just short. However, surging forward like a man demented , and no doubt getting rid of all his frustrations of the last few weeks of being sent to Coventry, he bulldozed down for a much-needed try.
He then repeated the dose a few mins later with a fine finish in Poo Corner, Shane converted from the touchline and suddenly at 12-6 Fenners had seemingly redeemed our season.
Lewi was to add another superb try on the half hour with a lovely switch play in midfield off a line-out, and Johnny Williams kept up his remarkable try-scoring record with another fine try in over-time in the first half, again in Poo Corner, to make the score 25 – 6 at half-time.
The second half started as did the first with constant Edinburgh pressure despite being down to 14 men. But the LI defence was firm and always seemed to have a last man sweeping up in defence to cover.
In truth we had little possession or territory for the whole of the second half, but on a couple of rare break-outs we scored 2 more fine tries, firstly from Tiks squeezing over in the Big Screen corner and then Fenners completed a glorious hat-trick by collecting a bobbling ball and skipping over, which TBC converted for a final score of 38 – 6.
Fenners’ smile truly lit up the Madstad at full time.
As Carol Vorderman once memorably quipped, the principal pleasure of playing a Scottish team is the sure knowledge that you won’t get a Scottish referee. And indeed, when you think of the likes of Iain ‘The Damage’ Ramage currently plying his trade, Carol has got a very fair point.
But others may share far distant memories of giants of the whistle such as Norman Sanson, the Headmaster from Auchtermuchty, who could silence such notorious hard-men such a Geoff ‘Spare’ Wheel with a quiet ‘now then laddie…’
It made me wonder why the whistling from the kingdom of the Calders, Hastings and Beatties has gone so far to pot…
But in any event, I’m not sure even Carol could have contemplated quite how abysmal Leighton Hodges could have been. The first half in particular produced a quite baffling display, with his decisions producing so much angst in the LI ranks that Sean Maitland lost his cool and was marched back 10m. Leighton appeared to be wholly oblivious to the law of straight line-outs and holding-on.
In truth, the LI lads did remarkably well to win so convincingly, despite having to battle 16 men for so much of the first half.
It’s fair to say that after his crimes and misdemeanours v Bath, Brendon was not exactly flavour of the month with me, and some others on here.
Credit to the him though, as he played an absolute blinder today. His box kicking was fantastic, regularly making 50m or more, and his passing was crisp and secure.
His cover sweeping defence was also top quality, and at times it looked like it was Dodge himself preventing an almost certain Edinburgh try with a last-ditch tackle.
If Fenners had not got his hat-trick Brendon would have been a shoo-in for MOTM.
So, next destination for the good ship Oirish is a docking at Leith Harbour and a Friday-night assignment at Murrayfield v Edinburgh.
Not so fond memories of a trip there in January 2003, when on a marrow-numbingly freezing night we contrived to blow a very comfortable lead with only a few mins to go. And the Stadium was dry…
Apparently the ‘dry’ rule has now been relaxed, but even allowing for some local lubrication, the sound of 4,000 hardy souls rattling around the 69,000 stadium is likely to be enough to make the Madstad resemble the Maracana…
In terms of selection, I think that Tom has now got to ‘ride the wave’ and basically start with largely the same 15 as today for the next few games, barring a return from injury of Matt who would be a certain starter, and Blair in the back-row.
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