By MickeyMouse
December 28 2015
Irish leading by two, with two minutes on the clock. Northampton claim the restart, the first time they had achieved this the entire game. They start pounding against the Irish defence, was this going to be a heartache ending to an otherwise wonderful Boxing Day Match? Myler is lined up for a drop goal, but he’s not very deep, perhaps because of the wind, perhaps because his kicking rate hasn’t been good today so he feels he needs to be closer to the sticks? Either way, the ball s thrust his way, three Irish forwards come charging at him, Blair Cowan blocks the drop goal!!! Northampton still have the ball however but spill it in the next phase. That’s it, Irish have done it!! We won our first Premiership match of the season!
So this match report started off in Brighton having been there for the family Christmas. What with the trains not running, having had my nose chewed by a runaway dog and having to drop the parents off in Slough when every other person is on the M25 due to the trains not running, I was not in the best of moods at the start of the game and not feeling particularly positive for the result. I had read the excellent match preview over on the saints messageboard where they had us down as their bogey team. I thought this a bit odd, but then thought back, there certainly have been some good results for Irish, both home and away against the Saints, so who knows!?!
Still, nearly 10,000 had joined me on the roads to Reading to watch the Irish match, not a bad result when you consider those damned trains that weren’t running! I got there earlier than I though and stood in a short queue for a beer for ages, when I got to the front, I swear it would have been quicker to brew a pint of Heineken than watch this fella pouring it, but I finally had my Chicken Balti pie, and all was good with the world again, onto the match!
What with this game having been on telly, and Virgin Media’s remote record function not working on either a Windows Phone or an Andriod, I’m going to guess everyone reading this was either there, watched it on the telly, or at least seen the highlights. To that end, I’m just going to pick a couple of points out on the match
This is the first Premiership match I remember that featured almost all of our offseason signings. Tiko, Symons, Maitland, McKibbin, Hearn & Franks were joined by many weathered souls and a young Jonny Williams from the academy whose stock gets better with each game. We were utterly hammered by Quins last time out, properly hammered. Irish had no ball that game and were chasing ghosts. Boxing Day this year, what a different story. Buoyed by the adventures against Edinburgh, Irish played like a team, but moreover, played with conviction. With Tiko still off due to the yellow card, we have a kickable penalty and I’m willing the Irish to take the 3 and secure the losing bonus points, just give me points for Christmas!! This however, is not good enough for the team. Geraghty kicks to the corner and two lineouts mauls are stopped illegally which saw former Exile Gibson sent to the bin for being a naughty boy. Irish then unfathomably decide to go for a Scrum! A SCRUM?!? What madness is this?! They’ve lost a flanker, not a front rower!
Well, how wrong was I?! Northampton left a player out of the scrum, had a player covering the blindside. Irish had no one on the blind, which left an extra man out wide on the openshide for the backs to find a gap. Irish didn’t need it, a truly awesome Irish scrum went straight and true, Northampton made a mess of the scrum and we surely would have scored had they been legal. The referee agreed and a penalty try awarded. Geraghty had the kick in front of the posts with two minutes on the clock, he is able to burn up 60 seconds, but kicked immediately giving the Saints the full two minutes to get a drop goal, eek! Come on Geraghty, you must remember the heroics against the Chiefs last season with your last minute drop goal!
Anyway, point of this section is that the new blood seem to be setting in and really back themselves. They are playing like a team, playing for each other and making things happen. The added class on show is plain to see and all team members new this season or not seem to be upping their game to ensure they are picked on the pitch.
This was the first match I’d seen Williams paired with Hearn, and based on only one performance, this is a midfield that works! Williams’ try scoring prowess is a known quantity now and doing great work for one so young. However, today he also showed us his tackling performance. The main performance I noted was a double tackle, he tackled player a, who offloaded to player b who was tackled immediately by Williams, great showing! Hearn too had a similar game, with good tackling, but it was his running lines taking out players for someone down the line to gain space from, these two put a good game into the Office, I hope to see them get more game time together!
There was an odd moment I noticed part way through the game. England stalwart Courtney Lawes appeared to be on one knee struggling with an injury, in line with a ruck in which Northampton had possession. He was well outside the field of view of either Ref or Touch Judge, and not in field of view of telly. Ball leaves ruck and would-be tacklers charge towards the ball, only a clumsy Lawes decides he’s ok afterall and gets up clumsily knocking two Irish defenders over in the process. It was an incredibly effective move that gave Northampton a few yards over the gain line. Coached or accidental? My fear being it was so far away from the action, it would be extremely difficult to see unless you were looking out for it. I only noticed as I was wondering if he was ok, we need him for the 6 Nations afterall!!
London Irish get their first penalty, they kick to the corner, they catch and drive and score a try. From then, they hardly use the drive until the last 5 minutes when we’re in with a sniff of winning. After the first game of the season against Leicester, it is clear that both our scrum and our maul has had a lot of work, to the point that our maul is a very effective weapon, but we seem to be using it as few times as possible, is this intentional?! I don’t mind an up the jumper kind of game if it gets us more 4-pointers in the season! Why are we not using it to get a few more wins and build confidence until the latter part of the season when throw the ball about rugby starts to come back?
It was good to see the whole team again come out and make their way to the East Stand and applaud. Special mentions should be made to McKibbin and Williams who went over the barriers to interact with the fans. Williams appeared to know the lads he had a hug with, but if he didn’t that was a great touch, major kudos goes to McKibbin however who went up to a young lad and gave him a hug and hung around to let the parent take a photo with him. That would surely have made that young lads day, after McKibbin and Franks did the same the game before, I hope this sort of thing makes it through to more team members, it really makes a massive difference.
I think in the MotM thread I said it should really go to a forward, but having watched a repeat on the telly box now, I think I can only pick McKibbin. He was everywhere and really reminded me of the days of Dodge, quick snap pass, good and effective box kick keeping the opposition honest. It’s not just his play though, he’s truly gone into the London Irish way as discussed above, but the main reason I nominate is the picture that has been used to accompany most articles on the match reports in the media. Copyright reasons means I can’t plug it below, but will put a link. The whole team was happy, the commentators on the telly box noted “Hear that roar!” when McKibbin kicked the ball into touch for our victory to be confirmed, but this photo captures a raw emotion of how much this meant to him. He not only put in a great performance, but he really wanted the win as well, it’s not just a job. And that’s why he’s my man of the match.
Quick shout out to the couple who got engaged in front of us all today, you were the couple my friend and I were talking to on the way back from Gloucester on the Irish arranged coach, thoroughly nice people and many congratulations on what has probably ended up being a perfect day and one you’ll never forget!
Cheers!
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