Prior to the match we were treated to some scantily clad dancing girls in the center circle. The ''Statler and Waldorf'' like pair who were sitting behind me seemed to approve at the time. Later in the hotel bar the comments I heard were generally negative. The comments I can recall were "Tacky" and "Not London Irish". Our warm up seemed to be shorter than I can recall from previous games. We went in some fifteen minutes before kick off, a good ten or so before Gloucester.

The boys may have cooled down by the time they came onto the pitch. The rain that was now teeming down certainly didn't help. We certainly had a poor start to the game, gifting two early tries from which we were never to recover. The first came four minutes into the game. We lost our own lineout on our 22. Lawson then cut infield and through a sleepy looking defence, Bob missed a tackle. He didn't quite make it to the line but handed off to James Bailey who put it down. This was converted, we were 0 - 7 down.

It was at this stage that Dec got injured. The played on for a little while but was limping badly and was soon replaced by Magne. We then had a good little spell of pressure which resulted in a penalty. Barry's long kick fell just short. From the restart Dellon put up a good up and under and looked through but was hauled down just short of the line. The opportunity to score was lost as we were pinged for holding on.

The second Glaws try came on 14 minutes. They won their own lineout on our 22 and again made our defence look leaden footed as the ball was passed to Lawson. He ran in from 22m out. The conversion was missed but we were now 0 - 12 down, things looked very ominous. That was the last I saw of the first half for reasons I'll come to later but we only then picked up our game. A penalty by Barry and an unconverted try by Riki brought the half time score to a more respectable 8 - 12. We were still in the game.

The third quarter was a pretty turgid period of play. That said our line out at last improved, we were at last securing our own possession and nicking Gloucester ball. Glaws scored one penalty and Barry missed another long attempt. Things started to look much better mid way through the half. We were awarded a difficult penalty and chose to go for the corner. Whilst we secured the ball the Glaws defence held back the attempted drive but conceded another penalty under the posts. This was converted, with twenty minutes to go the score was 11 - 15.

At this stage we started to look very good. Though down I genuinely believed we would win the the game. We were pressing the Gloucester line and mixing and matching play well. The team looked confident. It was however a cruel twist of fate on 70 minutes that took any chance of us winning this game away. We were attacking, and the ball was passed wide. A poor pass in the direction of Delon left him with little choice other than to try and kick the ball through. His kick put the ball straight into the hands of Simpson Daniel who raced some 60 meters or so to place the ball under the posts. With the conversion the score was 11 - 22. That was how the game ended.

I have to say that I went into this game expecting us to be thumped. This is a very good Gloucester side who I fully expect to be there or thereabouts come the end of the season. Had our defence not been asleep in the first quarter, had Delon, who otherwise had an excellent game, not kicked the ball to JSD, had the referee been consistent, etc, etc.... We could have won this game. To my mind we looked the better team on the pitch.

Now time for a rant. Someone inside the club has to take hold of the South Stand problems. Our (gate 9) season tickets are still not working which means a queue to find a steward who activates it with his wireless device. I asked him if something was being done about it and he said "They were going to issue new tickets but someone decided against it". I can understand teething problems at the start of the season but we are now in mid-November. If our ST's are never going to work properly because someone inside the club can't be bothered to issue new ones, then just tell us that will be the case.

The catering inside the South Stand on Friday was farcical. For those who haven't been there it has one bar under the concourse, they open only half of it. For the previous game I was at, against Bristol, when there were only six or seven hundred in the stand this was acceptable. On Friday night when there were a good couple of thousand it was not. The queue for food and drinks, even during the game, was 30 minutes. When I got to the front of the queue, even though it was not yet half time almost all the food was sold out, I believe I may have had the last of what was available. Surely it is not beyond the ken of the catering company to liaise with the ticket office, find out how many are likely to be there and allocate resources accordingly?

Beaten but not bowed. This team are good enough to still make something of this season.

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