The bulldozer

Where do you start after that?  Two reds, two yellows, a lot of aggression, a lot of attempted intimidation, a lot of injuries, a loss of control on all sides, dubious refereeing, worse touch judging – and that rarest of all breeds, a try from Robbie Morris!

 

Any Falcons supporter going to Welford Road on Friday night would have had the memories of Black Saturday in the mind.  The ation was definitely full of trepid arriving at the ground, and as we came out of the pub I commented to some of the Tigers supporters that it was lambs to the slaughter time.  They responded with “but we never play well on a Friday night”.  Falcons’ record on a Friday?  A win and a draw out of nine matches.

 

Let’s face it, the game wasn’t a classic and won’t be remembered for anything else but the thuggery and the complete loss of control by all three sides.  All Falcons, however, whether supporters, players or coaches, will be pleased at the way the side stood up to what was going on around them and reacted to it – in all forms of rugby you have to be able to react to what’s in front of you, and just for a change, Falcons did.

 

Jonny’s fourth minute penalty rebounded off the upright, but from the first phase possession, Hall Charlton engineered a position that the fly half dropped a goal.  Shortly afterwards, Andy Goode’s prodigious and mighty boot levelled the score, then put the Tigers into the lead with one that was less well hit.  It all looked like a pretty normal game of rugby.

 

And then it kicked off.  Graham Rowntree was helped off the field looking very, very groggy – early indications are that it was caused by a fist, but more of that later – and with Falcons being awarded the penalty, Wilkinson kicked it level.  Within a minute, Louis Deacon’s 100^th Tigers appearance was cut short by injury, and with Geordan Murphy also picking up a knock in a tackle, Tigers’ key players were dropping like flies.  Soon after, Harry Ellis flew into one of his attempts at charging down a kick (and whatever anyone says, that’s the way he does them – it’s up to others to decide if it’s dangerous), and caught Wilkinson after he’d got his kick away.  Reckless, yes.  Dangerous, not sure.  No arguments about the penalty though, as you have to give decisions like that to keep the game from tipping over into unlawfulness. 

 

After the kind of delay that makes you wonder why all the King’s horses and all the King’s men didn’t become rugby physios (plus the obvious concerns that it was the same knee that got crocked in Perpignan), an obviously struggling Wilkinson resumed play, to a fair amount of booing from behind where I was on the terrace.  Matt Burke took over the kicking duties and made it 9-6 to Falcons.

 

After spending Thursday night seeing enough cards to start a branch of Clintons, Friday night very quickly repeated the dose for me.  Card one was for a late challenge by Goode on Wilkinson for a short arm blow that will see him disappointed to see yellow for not that heavy a challenge.  Card two, within seconds, meant that the numerical advantage was cancelled out by Andy Long (having a shocker with the lineout) taking a walk.  If referee Spreadbury thought that the sides would calm down, then he totally underestimated how high feelings were running.

 

Julian White and Andy Perry ended up on the floor fighting, and Spreadbury, when eventually breaking it up, called both over.  At this point I was more worried that Robbie Morris was going to walk as he was getting involved in later altercations that looked like they were going to boil over.  Unsurprisingly, both White and Perry saw red, and Falcons got the penalty.

 

Now I must admit the first thing I did when I came through the door at five to eleven was to rewind the tape and look at the evidence.  I’d received a text message during the game from my very neutral mate saying “White is a disgrace perry never threw a punch and took 3 full punches from white”.  That got me interested.  From looking at the video, there is no doubt that Julian White threw punches that connected with a man being held down, and consequently should face a long ban.  Of?  Well, I looked at the RFU website, and the ruling on Lewis Moody from earlier this season.  Two points spring out:-

“Sanction

The MID RANGE entry point for striking is 3 months (taken to be 12 weeks). 

A deliberate punch to the face, where the victim is vulnerable, and which causes significant injury will invariably be classified as more than at the lower end of offending…”

 

Moody was classed at the mid range, and the mitigating circumstances meant a six week ban.  White, I would guess, will be looking at double that.  But what of Perry?  Well, as mentioned earlier, he was “heavily involved” in the Rowntree departure, and from looking at the video two or three times you can see that Perry is dragged off the ruck by George Chuter, who is then joined in holding the lock by Leo Cullen.  Perry then swings his right arm towards Cullen, and the very last shot as the camera moves away is of a movement that I would guess is the prelude to a punch.  The next time we see Perry, he is being held down whilst White is taking shots at his face.

 

It could also be a long ban for Perry, neither player being helped by the game being televised live and the detail that Sky will go into both on Saturday afternoon and on the Rugby Club on Thursday.  By that point, if the red cards are treated as last season, both men will know their fate.  Oh to be a fly on the wall on Tuesday night at the disciplinary hearing.

 

One thing it did mean was uncontested scrums, as Leicester had no props left.  Stuart Barnes’ view on uncontested scrums, aired on the Sky Sports website just over three weeks ago?

“If the team still claim to be incapable of scrumming with three covering front row players, then the referee, if suspicious, has the ability to give the opposition a penalty on every put in."

And Friday night, Mr Barnes, is why the idea of awarding penalties would not work – even though it would have suited Falcons down to the ground.

 

With the game overflowing, Falcons got another penalty just before half time which Matt Burke pulled across the face of the posts, and after one more away attack, Spreadbury blew the whistle.  54 minutes plus.  The last train, due to leave at 10, was looking a long way away.

 

The second half saw Tigers going for it, as expected, and they were denied one try with some doubt over the grounding, before being given another, which I must admit came unexpectedly to me as I was looking up at what I thought the move would be.  The subsequent TV replay suggests that Jamie Hamilton didn’t have the ball under his control when he crossed (or not as the case may be) the line.  If that was rough, Andy Goode’s conversion certainly was, as TV has proved that it missed – certainly the delay in the decision being given was telling of the uncertainty.  13-9, and we couldn’t do anything about it.  Goode kicked another, then missed a monster from his own half when he hit the post.

 

It woke Falcons up.  Matt Burke caught a bomb, and in a play reminiscent of his own personal greatest ever try, for Australia against New Zealand, he headed though a gap, through tackles, and up the middle.  Unlike the Aussie try, he decided not to go himself, and slipped an inside ball for the onrushing Jamie Noon which was just behind the England centre.  It would have been seven points under the posts.

 

The wait was not a long one.  Geoff Parling, getting better by the game, made a break down the right, and with the ball being recycled, Wilkinson found Mike McCarthy in a acre of space, and McCarthy threw a long ball out to the wing to the renowned winger…Robbie Morris.  The big prop likes coming back to the East Midlands – a win over Northampton, and now a first premiership try (and only the second of his career, the first coming in a friendly) against a team where his ability has always been targeted.  He went through the tackle of Leon Lloyd and touched down in the corner.  Burke, the coolest man in Leicester, converted brilliantly to level the scores.

 

Now if he could just have kicked the long penalty a few minutes later to put us in front, I wouldn’t be typing this at 2.28 in the morning, I’d still be getting blotto in Loughborough.  He didn’t.  I’m sober, and wanting my bed.  Having heard Jonny’s drop goal earlier being described as boring, I was robbed of the opportunity to ask the loudmouth a bit behind me if he thought Goode’s attempt was boring too, but to be quite frank it excited me, because it missed.

 

16 all when you expect to be disappointed is like a win.  I’m now sitting here though a bit down, because owing to circumstances out of our hands, it should have been a win.  It’s still eight years since we got one at Welford Road, and will now probably go to nine years before the next opportunity.  Credit the players; they played Leicester at their own game and upset the Tigers so much that they lost their discipline.  Credit the coaching staff, they got them up for it, and sensible substitutions meant that we could try and pull the game back when it mattered.  And credit the supporters, for making noise and getting behind the boys, and for being brave enough to put ourselves through the potential of another 83-10.

 

That day, Wilkinson, Charvis, Burke and Noon were all missing.  It makes a difference.

 

(And if anyone wondered, I got the train at 10, helped by it being late.)

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