Two tries from one time England winger at the start of each half decided the points, one finished a length of the field team try, the other was sheer opportunism and showed a predators awareness.

The big turning point was Irish full-back Mike Horak using his years of experience to zero effect. A long kick through from the edge of their 22 looked to be going dead. This would have meant an attacking scrum for Irish in a central position on the Tigers 22. Unfortunately as Horak watched the tumbling ball, he failed to spot the maligned Tom Varndell approaching at speed from his blind side. To the shock of the visiting crowd and the delight of the remaining 16,000 home fans, Varndell touched it down and altered the course of the game again. A try like that deserved the touchline conversion. Humphries kicked all of his penalties and two conversions, this being the most difficult. In the absence of Goode on England duty, his was an exemplary performance which fully deserved the real Man of the Match award. All the good work by the London Irish forwards in the first half of clawing the team back into contention had been undone in seconds.

Overall, we didn't have the pace or the wit from the backs, nor the strength or organisation from the forwards to score tries. While we did create pressure, and a good performance from referee Ashley Rowden penalised both sides equally, all our points came in penalties from Shane Geraghty. Although Geraghty put in a great place kicking performance, my Man of the Match would be referee Rowden. I think Shane got 6 of 7 from the deck, but sliced a couple of clearances, and also failed to find touch. Whilst he was livelier than Barry, there wasn't much penetration from him personally, and he often supplied a pass to a man with a tackler on him.

Mike Catt had a patchy game, good for organisation and defence, but not so good for running and kicking. His long pass was a good feature, but I don't think he linked with Seilala Mapasua particularly well. Mapasua is also busy in defence with a great tackle and high work rate, but seems to want to barge and take contact rather than use skill. Apart from his howler Mike Horak was steady, catching every high ball out of the sun and putting in some good defensive tackles in a long spell of pressure just before half-time. The game will be remembered for that lapse at the start of the second half though. He'd have need a length of the field try to cancel that one out. Delon was quiet and temperamentally sound, making some good decisions. It was unfortunate that his only real mistake was a contribution to the first try. While he got his man, the ball was slipped out of the tackle to Leon Lloyd, and Delon and his tackler brought down Topsy on the touchline. With no-one at home Lloyd crossed the line at the corner and ran the ball in to the posts unopposed. I was told later that this was actually Tom Varndell, and that it was Lloyd who supplied the pass. Anyway, it was a great try, 70 plus metres of running and handling from half a dozen players.

While the Leicester backs played well, we were a good match for them in the forwards. In fact I should say that our forward performance was excellent, where we let ourselves down was in conceding an early try in each half. We handicapped ourselves, and were playing catch up rugby. I'll credit the side with controlled and disciplined rugby in firstly not conceding yellow cards, and just a few penalties for offside.

The try we conceded at the start of the first half followed an early penalty for Leicester, and came from good line out ball won by Leicester on their own 22. With both sets of backs strung across the pitch, the Tigers fly-half Ian Humphreys decided to run with the ball and set his backs moving at pace. Good running lines and handling were as significant as the speed with which they attacked. I was concerned but thought our defence would snuff out the move on the touchline until Delon brought down Topsy.

From being 10-0 down so early it was a credit to the graft of the team that they fought back by inches to go in just 10-9 behind at half time. They did this by some kicking of varying quality, and pressuring the Leicester line out We did fail to throw straight once, but we generally dominated and stole. Leicester in fact by-passed the line out completely and threw to midfield. McCullen and Casey were left in, while Nick Kennedy was sometimes in midfield showing speed in an unusual arrangement. Shane scored 3 out of 4 kicks in this half, and the one he missed was from about 40 metres out and 5 metres from touch. I don't think we kicked to the corner all day, but I may be wrong on that. With the score back at 10-9 Leicester roused themselves and gained a penalty for offside. With about 6 minutes to go in the half they kicked to the corner and pressed for a try. Failing at the first attempt for a catch and drive they gained another penalty for holding up the man in the line out, this gained Bob Casey a lecture from Mr Rowden. This following line out occurred without interference and Tigers set a maul. But there wasn't enough muscle and Irish kept them out. It's quite likely that given a first choice pack that Leicester would have gone over here. As it was, London Irish could only lose to what was put in front of them.

Having failed with the forwards at the first attempt the ball was thrown into midfield for the Tigers backs to have a go at breaking the Irish defence. It was quite thrilling with every voice in the ground being raised, the Tigers had dummy runners and exciting running lines. Equally good was the spotting and tackling from the defence. The ball was thrown from side to side with combinations of strength and speed being used in attack and counteracted. After what seemed and absolute age of heart in the mouth action there was a handling error, and the pressure was lifted. Having endured this the first half ended and I thought we'd fought back well and risen to the challenge. In fact I was quite confident, 10-9 at half-time, that we'd come back with a win.

As it turned out, the second half had a repeated pattern with an early penalty, a soppy try, and we were again turning a hill climb in to an Everest expedition. At 20-12 we had to start on the comeback trail.

It was hard to believe it was possible to achieve, but we closed the gap through mounting pressure. As a team performance now every player gave his all. Suddenly we had a flood of substitutions, and were treated to Stefon Armitage bouncing players off him, epitomising the determination of the team and the fightback. The gap got down to us taking 3 point penalty rather than kicking for the corner, but we were in bonus point territory, and pressing again for a try in attack but we fluffed it. The mistake was compounded as we gave away a late penalty and failed to get even a bonus point.

All in all it was a good team performance, with great work by the forwards. But we let ourselves down with lapses of concentration, with just a couple of individual errors being really costly. I'd travelled optimistically, possibly brought on by the views of autumnal England in the sunshine. I'd predicted another away win, I had confidence in the team selection. This was far from being a full strength Leicester side, and those individual errors cost us impetus in an otherwise close game.

We travelled home in darkness following some excellent hospitality in the upstairs bar with live music, but the sense was that we'd let slip an opportunity to win at Welford Rd.

We have eliminated the indiscipline of yellow cards. We have eliminated the handing errors. We held on to the ball in contact. The scrum was solid, the line out was great, and we competed against the masters for the ball on the floor.

However we failed to make any line breaks from the backs, and were let off a couple of Tigers breaks by them being penalised for crossing. A better or even an average performance from the backs and we could have won. We didn't, and to state the bleedin’obvious it was because we failed to score more points than Tigers. The last thing a team struggling to score tries needs to do is to concede soft ones. Horak conjured up an error which I believe was a major contribution to our defeat, Varndell pounced, and the Tigers were feline groovy at the end.

First half timeline

Second half timeline

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