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The Presidents Wife, Three Men and a Referee
By Billy Hamilton
December 18 2006
Billy Hamilton, when he lived in the UK was a regular contributor to the Craic pantheon of Match Reports. Moving home to Donaghadee meant we lost his fabulous reports. Imagine our pleasure at drawing Ulster in the HC this year. Billy's back and adding a touch of journalistic class to our "tabloid".

Ulster v London Irish II – The saga continues.

Ulster 29 London Irish 13

On Friday 15th December London Irish supporters assembled in Belfast from various parts of the known Universe – Ham, Worthing, Sutton, Bracknell and Donaghadee to name but a few. All that is except for the Bristol 3. Although there were four one has been exonerated from the crime of which the others are manifestly guilty. Travelling from Reading the intrepid explorers arrived at Bristol Airport. “Photo ID please?” requested the check in agent. “You don’t need ID to fly to Belfast”. “Oh yes you do”. “Oh no you don’t”. “You yes you….” (It is the panto season after all). This contest ended in defeat for the Bristol 3 who had to set off homewards again to get ID. One, who had sent her passport off for renewal the previous day, eventually travelled on a Somerset county Cricket Club membership card. They arrived at Belfast at 10 pm. (Yes children I know that the game kicked off at 7.30 pm but that is what happens when Mummies and Daddies are naughty).

Meanwhile a number of the successful tourists assembled in the “Crown” bar for the Star of Down/ Ulster Tom pub crawl. It turned out to be very successful starting at the “Crown”, finishing at the “Crown” and along the way visiting er the “Crown”. The craic was so good that they invented a new concept – the static pub crawl.

In the late afternoon the Sutton Branch and half of the Donaghadee Branch repaired to another hostelry to meet up with the Belfast Branch and the other half of the Donaghadee Branch. After an excellent meal the women set off for Ravenhill in the comfort of Carol’s car while the men had to queue for a taxi with Laurence, an Ulster referee we managed to “pick up” in the pub. As we were about to enter the said conveyance a woman further down the queue hailed us. “Are you going to Ravenhill?” was the cry. We agreed to let us share the taxi and it transpired that she was the wife of the President of the Ulster Branch of the IRFU. He had dropped her off in Belfast city centre earlier and not only was she not attending any pre-match events but she was not expected to arrive at Ravenhill before 6.30pm. Male chauvinism is alive and well in Rugby Union!

At the ground over 500 LI supporters were in the Titan stand trying to compete with the 12,000 Ulster supporters. The night was bitterly cold but dry but rain earlier in the day had left the ground soft.

What went wrong this week? It can all be summed up in one word – MISTAKES. We opened the scoring with a Shane Geraghty penalty but Ulster took the lead with a David Humphrey’s chip to the left wing which was taken by Andrew Trimble who went over for a try. I have read reports which suggest that he “beat Justin Bishop’s tackle”. As far as I could see he was unmarked and since when has an outstretched arm constituted a “tackle”. All right a marvellous try but perhaps we could have covered better. We did regain the lead with another Geraghty penalty to go into the interval leading by one point at 6-5. Shades of last week and all to play for but I did not feel as confident with our performance as I did watching the first game.

In the 44th minute we went down to a “sucker punch”. Bishop was adjudged offside, the referee spoke to him, Humphreys got the ball and had every intention of kicking for goal. We retired with our backs to him and, when this was pointed out, he changed his mind. A quick tapped kick and he was over for a try before we realised what was happening. There is an old saying “play to the whistle” but this was a case of playing to the referee’s signal. Why did we assume that he was trying for a goal when neither he nor the referee had signalled this intention? The third Ulster try could also have been avoided. A chip down Ulster’s left wing again found no one at home. Bishop scrambled over but could not field the ball succeeded in knocking it back allowing Neil McMillan to pounce on it and go over the goal line. So suddenly we are 22-6 down. We did get back into the game with a try by Gonzalo Tiesi converted by Shane but, following the sin binning of Bob Casey for collapsing a maul Ulster opted for a scum which resulted in the ball going to Paul Steinmetz who crossed for the bonus point-winning try in the 77th minute. Humphries' conversion was successful.

Along the way Isaac Boss had been sin binned in the first half for a high tackle on Delon and close to the end Delon was himself sent to the “cooler” with Trimble following a tussle well away from play.

What are my impressions of the game? We played well but not a patch on last week. We allowed Ulster to play an attacking game. While our defence was strong it left a lot of gaps that the home side were able to exploit. A fairer score would have been 17-13 in Ulster’s favour given that we gifted them two tries.

A lot has been written about the conduct of supporters, racist remarks by players etc. I can honestly say that I did not see any conduct with which I could take exception except for one thing. There was booing by Ulster supporters during our kicks even in spite of an appeal by the PA announcer. I was told that normally one could hear a pin drop during kicks at Ravenhill but the supporters were displeased with the time we took over the kicks. Sorry but I do not accept that as a reasonable excuse for the conduct.

On a personal note can I say that it was nice for Carol and myself to see so many friends from LI and to meet so many people whom I only knew from this board.

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