The last few games had seen tigers cutting defences apart, although the finishing had been lacking.  Cardiff had also gone for a far from weak team; so a tough game was expected, but we were quietly confident.  The one negative thought, was one of our party telling us that in eight visits to the Arms Park we had never won. 

For the first minutes our optimism seemed justified, but the first Cardiff attack brought them their first points, tigers going off their feet, step up Blair to kick the first nail in our coffin. From then on the game was played mostly in our own half, with tigers telegraphing every move, most of which were either Harry box kicking for Matt Smith, or Hougaard kicking aimlessly down field, most kicks ending up straight in the arms of a grateful Cardiff back three. 

Cardiff on the other hand also kicked a lot of ball away, but far more effectively, having spotted that our wingers were consistently up in the defensive line, they put accurate kicks in behind them, most finding touch, and keeping us pinned back in our own half. 

The one tigers moment of the half featured Rabeni, fielding one of the few Cardiff kicks not to go into touch, and running back at the Cardiff defence, chipping over it and re-gathering his kick, this was Rabeni at his best; unfortunately we also saw too much of the worst of him, lining up the big tackle, but failing to use his arms and allowing the Cardiff player to twist away, only taking a glancing blow, thus enabling the Cardiff attackers make considerable ground and taking Rabeni out of the play. 

These missed tackles, proved contagious and Cardiff regularly made ground, through some powerful running and weak tackling, the only saving grace was Dave Pearson being particularly tight on forward passes, I’m not sure several of those calls were correct, but they kept us in the game. On the few occasions we made the Cardiff half, Hougaard was determined to show us how good a drop goal kicker he was, but he’d left his kicking boots elsewhere, and all it served was to give Cardiff the chance to drop out long, back deep into our own half. 

Both sides were fairly disciplined, with each team having two kickable chances, Cardiff taking both theirs, tigers just the one, with the last kick off the half. 

A word to the Cardiff administrators, when you go to your new ground, please, get a game clock, alternating the score and the time isn’t that useful. 

Half-time: Cardiff 6-3 Tigers 

Somehow or other we had got to half-time still in the game, we had to come out firing on all cylinders, and to mix my metaphors, we came out continuing to fire blanks. If anything, apart from a ten minute period, we were even worse than the first half, continuing to fall off tackles, particularly down the centre of the park.  Five minutes into the second half and the first try, a huge gap opened up and the Cardiff centres needed no second invitation, with only the fullback to beat, Jamie Roberts drew his man and passed to Jamie Robinson to score under the posts. At this point we feared the worst and that the floodgates would open.

Well Cardiff continued to poor through the holes in the centre, so maybe it was the Flood-gate opening.  Fortunately for tigers our last ditch tackling and the Cardiff players amazing ability to drop the ball a yard from the line saved us from being on the end of a cricket score. Somehow we managed to stay within seven points, at one stage getting as close as four.

Two moments showed it wasn’t to be our day, the first a rare few minutes of pressure deep in Cardiff territory, with Cardiff regularly offending, the ref getting twitchy and seemingly getting ready to go to his pocket, we spun it out to the middle of the pitch and promptly got turned over, never again to get so close to the opposition white wash.  The second, a loose Cardiff ball, Harry hacks on from halfway into Cardiff 22, only for the following tigers to come up in such a ragged defensive line that the winger was able to gather the ball and launch a counter that took Cardiff back into our own half. With the clock running down, and seemingly destined to gain an undeserved bonus point, Flood kicks from our line to their winger on our 22; once again we seemed to have survived by the skin of our teeth with some last ditch tackling only for another of those huge gaps to open up to allow the scrum half one of the easiest tries he’ll ever score. 

Blair then went and spoiled my day further by getting the conversion and taking another point off my prediction league score. The failure to hang onto that bonus point means that we now have to win with a bonus point (something we’ve only achieved once this season) against Sale and hope that Bath can beat Cardiff on their own patch without a bonus point, preferably for either side.  Cardiff on the other hand will be looking to beat premiership opposition for the third week running to show those of us who decry the Magners league, that maybe we ought to think again. 

So the journey back was somewhat subdued as we contemplated the team’s ninth defeat at the Arms Park, one of our number having seen over half of them.  Hopefully the move to a new ground will finally allow us to break our duck; although if the rumours are true and it’s the Welsh premiership teams we’ll be playing next season, we could be back there again, as it is only the Blues who are moving, according to a source in the pub. 

Next time, I’ll go to Prague with the editor’s family and she can watch the dross, sorry game.  I was glad I forgot to set the video as watching that again would’ve been purgatory, so any errors or omissions in the report are due to my faulty memory or maybe already trying to blank it from my mind, the performance was only fractionally better than that against W*sps.

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