By LI Bohemian
November 28 2017
Although the temperature was on the way down the conditions looked good for rugby at the Madstad.
The game started with Wasps getting little position and Irish grinding out good field positions, only to make errors, allowing Wasps to clear their lines each time. Wasps seemed to have the upper hand in the scrum, this helped them fend off any attacks and clear any pressure put on them, when they did get the ball in first half, seemed to be throwing the ball when they should have been more patient, thus they also ended up losing possession. Wasps spurned kickable penalties and opted for scrums and line-out drives, although Wasps had Irish pinned on their five metre line for countless scrummages, this resulted in Ben Franks receiving a yellow card, Wasps still could not get any points as the Irish defense held firm.
The result of this play in the first half was a score of 3-0 at half time, to Irish.
After watching recent games, it felt good to go into the Jazz Café at the break with the game still being in the balance.
Irish started the second half with good composure and pressured Wasps into there own 22 but could not get any points because of their lack of accuracy at crucial moments.
An interception try relieved the tension for a while, but then the intensity of Irish dropped off whether through tiredness or habit causing a penalty to be kicked into the corner and the resultant maul to score, putting Wasps back in the game.
Irish pulled back by a penalty making it 13 – 5.
Wasps brought on Robson and more decisively Cipriani with ten minutes to go and that to me was too much for Irish, as players like these put their team in higher gears, two try’s later and the game was gone, but not the bonus point which in the season when Irish were relegated, they would not have had.
Worcester are five points ahead of Irish now, as Irish were for most of the first part of the season.
The result was disappointing but the team has improved defensively, this may have come at a cost of attacking options, who would be a coach?
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