A sold-out crowd witnessed the Friday Night Live in Newcastle, but the home side made their fans wait another two weeks for a first home win of the season in the Premiership, going down 20-23 despite taking an 8-3 lead with a Matt Burke try and Jonny Wilkinson penalty, but Barry Everitt’s three penalties, two conversion and Phil Murphy and Riki Flutey tries to four more Wilkinson penalties meant the points went south.  However, since then we have been beaten only twice, though they were both in the London area, at Saracens and Wasps.

This fixture last season ended in a heart-breaking 21-15 defeat for Newcastle, with Paul Hodgson’s last minute converted try sealing the win after Phil Dowson and David Walder had scored for us in the first half.  We have won twice at the Madejski Stadium against Irish though, as well as a 20-3 victory over Richmond there in April 1999, in a Tetley’s Cup semi-final. Our complete record away to Irish in the Premiership is as follows:

1/11/97 W35-19 (at Sunbury)

2/1/99 L14-16 (at Sunbury)

3/10/99 L8-56 (at The Stoop)

5/12/00 L17-19

23/9/01 W22-18

29/12/02 L0-20

23/11/03 W19-15

21/11/04 L15-21

Therefore logically it must be our turn to win this time!

What a shame then that the game isn’t played on logic, rather on a pitch against 15 players, with a this-weekend-very strong look about them.  Although Irish don’t have any players at the Six Nations, it’s not for a lack of quality.  Their Irish international contingent boasts Kieron Dawson, Justin Bishop and powerful lock Bob Casey, whilst Canadian Phil Murphy, Samoan Dominic Feau’nati, France’s 83-cap back-rower Olivier Magne, Robbie Russell of Scotland and former England prop Rob Hardwick make up an experienced pack.  If that weren’t enough, the back line is orchestrated by Barry Everitt, Riki Flutey and England’s World Cup winner Mike Catt, who look to set off the sparkling attacking talents of Michael Horak, Delon Armitage and Australian international Scott Staniforth.  There’s even a Geordie amongst the ‘Reading All-sorts’ – Paul Gustard, former Leicester flanker and son of ex-Gosforth winger Steve.

The men from the Madejski have won their last three matches, joining ourselves in the quarter-finals of the European Challenge Cup by winning 19-11 in Parma and then tearing Pau apart 75-12 in Reading, and two weeks ago the Irish claimed the mighty feat of winning at Kingsholm by a score of 13-9.  However, both of their home Premiership matches over the New Year ended in defeats, 19-35 to Wasps and 25-28 to Leicester.

Irish are always a tough team to play against because of the strength of their forwards and how quickly their backs can build a fast and unpredictable attack, however as their league position and form shows, they can be frustratingly inconsistent, a bit like us.  Whatever any signs would tell us though, the Premiership table shows Irish two places and seven points ahead of us, by no means uncatchable were we to win on Sunday, but if we go home with a defeat, then breaking into the top 5 or 6 for a Heineken Cup place would look increasingly difficult, especially if Worcester, sandwiched between us but only a point behind Irish, were to win.

Therefore we must hope that Matt Burke returns to fitness this weekend, and to a lesser extent Cory Harris (lesser only because of Ben Woods’ good form), and that the rest of the team don’t find it too difficult to overcome the loss of Colin Charvis and Jamie Noon to international duty.

The team, as announced on Thursday afternoon, see five changes, with Joe Shaw and Mark Mayerhofler replacing Noon and Tait, Matt Burke replacing Toby Flood as dave Walder moves to 10, and Andy Buist and Cory Harris coming into the back row in place of Charvis and Woods.

15 Matthew Burke (captain)
14 Tom May
13 Joe Shaw
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 Anthony Elliott
10 Dave Walder
9 James Grindal

1 Micky Ward
2 Andy Long
3 Robbie Morris
4 Andy Perry
5 Stuart Grimes
6 Owen Finegan
7 Cory Harris
8 Andy Buist

Replacements:

Tino Paoletti
Matt Thompson
Luke Gross
Mike McCarthy
Ben Woods
Hall Charlton
Jonny Wilkinson

(Not sure if I recognise that last name though.  Is he a new signing?)

No Irish team as yet, which invariably means it’ll be announced about five seconds after I post this on the site…

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