After what feels like an indecently quick ‘close season’ (is it like Christmas and birthdays where the older you get, the quicker they come?) the masses assembled at the home of England Rugby for the now traditional Double Header and thankfully the equally traditional London Irish victory - although this years wasn’t quite as comfortable as those that went before.

Now from the start I will have to point out that I was sat in row 3 of block 38, practically in amongst the bricks and mortar of the south stand so not the best of views and much of what went on was lost to me. However, the big-screen replays proved very handy when needing justification for politely questioning the decisions made by Mr Rose. Bless him…

Anyhow, enough of the excuses.

The game started quickly enough with both the Irish lads and the Queenly ones trying to be first to put their mark on the game. Harlequins managed it after only 4 minutes with a penalty by Jarvis. It was only a matter of minutes later that he managed to double the lead to 0-6 at which point I will confess that my participation in the prediction league looked to be off to a shaky start. However with Abbott sent to the sin-bin for what might have been a late or high tackle (hard to see from where I was) Riki Flutey reduced the deficit to 3. Irish were constantly trying to, and looking capable of, breaking through the Quins defence on more than one occasion before Topsy managed to find space after a Quins dropped ball (on their own line) just on the half hour and secured a very welcome 5 points. The conversion attempt went begging but the score was a much more palatable 8-6.

Three minutes respite was all we were afforded before Mr Rose (I’m sure his family love him) sent Juan Manuel to the sin-bin for fighting. Jarvis – not one to miss an opportunity – sent the ball between the posts to leave the score at 8-9 which is where it remained when the whistle blew for half-time on 41 minutes.

The second half showed that Jarvis had not had enough. Three penalty kicks? Pah! So after only 10 minutes or so (and for what infringement I have no idea – dodgy seats!) he again took possession of the kicking tee and safely delivered the fourth to give us a score of 8-12. This third quarter saw the customary flurry of replacements for Irish with Coetzee, Lea’aetoa, Scuse and Leguizamon being replaced by Russell, Fitter, Hatley and Murphy respectively while in amongst the to-ing and fro-ing Riki managed to slot over two quick penalties (again I have no idea what the Quins were doing to upset the sensibilities of that lovely Mr Rose as play was all up the other end of the pitch from me) to give us a much more acceptable score line of 14-12.

With play continuing a-pace our boys looked to be getting the better of it and some really quite impressive pack-work led to a beauty of a drop goal from Riki who gave us a little more breathing room with a score of 17-12. Harlequins, rather unsportingly refusing to accept that we were fully deserving of the 4 points, kept up the pressure (while making a couple of changes of their own) and a period which saw Catt replaced by Everitt and a little later Magne replaced by Danaher found us deep in our own half trying to hold off another Quins attack. Sadly to no avail because the buffoon with the whistle awarded a try.

A try being the play where a player travelling forward, crosses the line and applies downward pressure to ground the ball. Ceri Jones* dropped the ball. Forward. That, Mr Rose my love, does not equal a try.
* I used to know a girl called Ceri Jones, wonder if it’s her?

With the relentlessly accurate Jarvis converting the so-called try we found ourselves the wrong end of a 17-19 score line with only 5 minutes or so remaining. In that frantic five minutes (well frantic if you are an Irish supporter) we were awarded two penalties – which a number of the Harlequins supporters took very badly – the first of which missed but the second of which, in the dying seconds of the game, Riki hit cleanly between the posts to give a final score of London Irish 20-19 Harlequins.

All in all I would say it wasn’t the most entertaining of matches but it was a win on the first day of the new season in front of 51,600. The howling wind coming in through the south window can’t have contributed anything favourable to the game for either set of players.

Harlequins supporters booing kickers really need to cop on to themselves. No it probably doesn’t bother the kicker one iota but it does give them a bad name and it makes them look like arses. (I can confirm that there was booing by a number of the Irish contingent but that was a direct result of the non-try decision – not big and not clever but not directed at one player either.)

Every time I find we have Mr Rose ‘controlling’ one of our matches I get a small ball of dread in my belly. Every time I think I’m being uncharitable and that I’ll leave with a different impression. Every time I’m disappointed!

The second match between Wasps & Sarries was less entertaining than ours; something I will confess I thought was unlikely when it kicked-off! So the double header heralded the start of the new season with definitely less of a bang, more of a whimper.

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