Running Rugby Returns
By Griff January 15 2007
Toulouse at the MadStad is always a special occasion. Back in 2003 it was a HUGE deal to have the cream of Europe at "our" house and, despite Stade's drop in form and the fact that we were both, effectively, out of the Heineken Cup, it still felt special to have the boys in red and black back.
Toulouse at the MadStad is always a special occasion. Back in 2003 it was a HUGE deal to have the cream of Europe at "our" house and, despite Stade's drop in form and the fact that we were both, effectively, out of the Heineken Cup, it still felt special to have the boys in red and black back.
Except, of course, Toulouse played in their change-strip, a light pink that Eddie Izzard would refer to as "pants left in wash".
All I was hoping for was a good game of rugby, played by two teams that like to run the ball - the fact that there was really nothing to play for meant there'd be no silly stuff. The boys could just play their rugby.
Irish opened brightly and applied a bit of pressure. The plan was clearly to suit my hopes for the game as we were keen to throw the pill about and try and get it out wide. Only the drizzle, and the inevitable poor handling it produced, held us back.
Once Irish turned it over, forced by a serious Toulouse defensive effort, the visitors showed we weren't the only ones to be able to throw the ball about. A fast attack was stopped by Shane Geraghty - a little high for referee Alan Lewis - the resulting penalty allowed Toulouse to start a whole new fast attack. A fine move was finished rather scrappily when a grubber kick tore the remains of the Irish defence apart and two Toulouse backs dropped on it for a try, attributed to Garbajosa. The wide conversion was missed.
Irish looked a bit stunned by the score, they'd played the majority of the rugby up to this point and only a slight lapse had caused a 0 - 5 score-line. They stepped up their efforts to equal the score but an unfortunate turn-over put them on the back foot.
The "turn-over" went like this. A brisk move wide for Irish tried to imitate the successful Toulouse score with a chip ahead. A Toulouse hand beat the two chasing attackers and ushered the ball safely into touch. Line-out to Irish ? Delon had a word with Mr Lewis, I suspect he was suggesting it was a deliberate knock-on or into touch, in any case, the ref saw fit to give a penalty to Toulouse 10m down the pitch.
Say what you like about the prodigious talent that is Delon you can't get away from the fact the man has to get a grip on his "attitude". To be fair the lad did look mightily sorry for his misdemeanour and I've never seen anyone as desperate to score a try as he did for the rest of the match. His Heineken Man of the Match award was, very much, well earned. He was fantastic under a couple of real pressure high balls (I think those of you who still think he isn't a full-back really need to let that one go now), he supported attackers very well and cleared up when necessary. Were it not for this rather sad incident he'd have had a really great game.
From this reversal Toulouse made another good fist of breaking the Irish defence down. At first, they'd use the maul to good effect and then they'd move it wide. It was almost inevitable that they'd score, and score they did with that man Garbajosa touching down wide again, this time scrum-half Courrent added the extras.
If Irish looked shocked before now they looked livid! From the off they were even more aggressive and really took the fight to the visitors. Toulouse really are a class-act though and it took all of the remaining 25 minutes of the half for Irish to finally break the incredible defence of Toulouse down.
The green-machine slowly pushed the thin pink line back and slowly built the pressure until it simply had to break. That man Garbajosa decided to make another appearance when he dived around an Irish ruck about 2m out and killed the ball. Referee Lewis had no choice but to card the guy, a penalty try wouldn't have been out of the question (although it would've been harsh). Irish kicked to touch and renewed the pressure but Toulouse, amazingly, held firm until the young magician Shane Geraghty danced and bashed his way over the remaining metres to open the home account. He missed the conversion but at half-time things were looking up and we were back in the fight.
The second half brought Barry Everitt on when Tiesi succumbed to a repeat of his ham-string - he looked gutted. Shabbo had gone off in the first half to be replaced by Riki Flutey so we completed the game with three (count them) fly-halfs on the field. Along the way through the half we swapped David Paice for Danie Coetzee, Richard Skuse for Faan Rautenbach and with about 10 minutes to play Dodge went off to give Richie Rees a go.
Irish started the half where they'd left the first heaping the pressure on their visitors. Toulouse showed real class in holding the rampaging attacks back, rarely resorting to foul-play to gain advatage. On the odd occasion though they were penalised and Irish took the ball to the corner a few times only to have their attack repelled again, and again.
One French infringement saw number 4 Lamboley go to the bin - it could have been any of them though as the massive Toulouse defence started to creak.
As Toulouse were wobbling in the scrum already the loss of a forward really put the pressure on them and it wasn’t long before Delon (see, I told you he was keen) got on the end of a wide move to bring Irish into double figures. Barry missed the conversion but we were only 2 points behind.
The missing-man was really telling for Toulouse and Irish used it to good effect, using the forwards to tie players in and then moving the ball away to the wings. 6 minutes after his first young Armitage made his brace which, to follow the pattern, we missed the conversion for. Having been behind for the whole match, though, we were now in the lead and looking good.
Of course, this is Irish, so we almost immediately went to sleep and allowed a very soft try. Toulouse managed to move the ball very quickly but a couple of missed tackles had the green line as a series of dots and not the wall that was necessary allowing the French inside-centre, Baby, to touch down fairly centrally allowing an easy conversion for the recently brought-on Ellisade.
The French fly half touched-down again in slightly more controversial circumstances 9 minutes later. A Toulouse attack had nearly brought a try but a well-placed kick from Geraghty put the ball dead in goal before a French hand could touch it. From the drop-out Toulouse pushed back but were well held by the home defence. Having turned the ball over Irish formed a ruck, from which the ball popped-out allowing Ellisade to pick it up and head for an easy score... except Ellisade was our side of the ruck, clearly off-side. The boos rang out clear as the support showed Mr Lewis they weren't happy with his decision but the ref held his hand up - so it was a try.
Delon completed his hat-trick shortly after as some consolation, clearing him, in my mind, for his earlier transgression but the game was lost 24 - 26. One of the four conversions would have earned us a draw, two would have won it.
It was the enjoyable, open game of rugby, pleasing to watch that I had hoped for, and yet many of the 8,834 watching left with a feeling of loss, this despite the fact that a win wouldn't have meant anything. Bad decisions will always happen but this one seemed so inept as to detract from the spectacle of a great game against a great opponent. I look forward to our next meeting and I'll try (with the help of a certain Mr Magner, I suspect) and forget the bad bits from today.
All I was hoping for was a good game of rugby, played by two teams that like to run the ball - the fact that there was really nothing to play for meant there'd be no silly stuff. The boys could just play their rugby.
Irish opened brightly and applied a bit of pressure. The plan was clearly to suit my hopes for the game as we were keen to throw the pill about and try and get it out wide. Only the drizzle, and the inevitable poor handling it produced, held us back.
Once Irish turned it over, forced by a serious Toulouse defensive effort, the visitors showed we weren't the only ones to be able to throw the ball about. A fast attack was stopped by Shane Geraghty - a little high for referee Alan Lewis - the resulting penalty allowed Toulouse to start a whole new fast attack. A fine move was finished rather scrappily when a grubber kick tore the remains of the Irish defence apart and two Toulouse backs dropped on it for a try, attributed to Garbajosa. The wide conversion was missed.
Irish looked a bit stunned by the score, they'd played the majority of the rugby up to this point and only a slight lapse had caused a 0 - 5 score-line. They stepped up their efforts to equal the score but an unfortunate turn-over put them on the back foot.
The "turn-over" went like this. A brisk move wide for Irish tried to imitate the successful Toulouse score with a chip ahead. A Toulouse hand beat the two chasing attackers and ushered the ball safely into touch. Line-out to Irish ? Delon had a word with Mr Lewis, I suspect he was suggesting it was a deliberate knock-on or into touch, in any case, the ref saw fit to give a penalty to Toulouse 10m down the pitch.
Say what you like about the prodigious talent that is Delon you can't get away from the fact the man has to get a grip on his "attitude". To be fair the lad did look mightily sorry for his misdemeanour and I've never seen anyone as desperate to score a try as he did for the rest of the match. His Heineken Man of the Match award was, very much, well earned. He was fantastic under a couple of real pressure high balls (I think those of you who still think he isn't a full-back really need to let that one go now), he supported attackers very well and cleared up when necessary. Were it not for this rather sad incident he'd have had a really great game.
From this reversal Toulouse made another good fist of breaking the Irish defence down. At first, they'd use the maul to good effect and then they'd move it wide. It was almost inevitable that they'd score, and score they did with that man Garbajosa touching down wide again, this time scrum-half Courrent added the extras.
If Irish looked shocked before now they looked livid! From the off they were even more aggressive and really took the fight to the visitors. Toulouse really are a class-act though and it took all of the remaining 25 minutes of the half for Irish to finally break the incredible defence of Toulouse down.
The green-machine slowly pushed the thin pink line back and slowly built the pressure until it simply had to break. That man Garbajosa decided to make another appearance when he dived around an Irish ruck about 2m out and killed the ball. Referee Lewis had no choice but to card the guy, a penalty try wouldn't have been out of the question (although it would've been harsh). Irish kicked to touch and renewed the pressure but Toulouse, amazingly, held firm until the young magician Shane Geraghty danced and bashed his way over the remaining metres to open the home account. He missed the conversion but at half-time things were looking up and we were back in the fight.
The second half brought Barry Everitt on when Tiesi succumbed to a repeat of his ham-string - he looked gutted. Shabbo had gone off in the first half to be replaced by Riki Flutey so we completed the game with three (count them) fly-halfs on the field. Along the way through the half we swapped David Paice for Danie Coetzee, Richard Skuse for Faan Rautenbach and with about 10 minutes to play Dodge went off to give Richie Rees a go.
Irish started the half where they'd left the first heaping the pressure on their visitors. Toulouse showed real class in holding the rampaging attacks back, rarely resorting to foul-play to gain advatage. On the odd occasion though they were penalised and Irish took the ball to the corner a few times only to have their attack repelled again, and again.
One French infringement saw number 4 Lamboley go to the bin - it could have been any of them though as the massive Toulouse defence started to creak.
As Toulouse were wobbling in the scrum already the loss of a forward really put the pressure on them and it wasn’t long before Delon (see, I told you he was keen) got on the end of a wide move to bring Irish into double figures. Barry missed the conversion but we were only 2 points behind.
The missing-man was really telling for Toulouse and Irish used it to good effect, using the forwards to tie players in and then moving the ball away to the wings. 6 minutes after his first young Armitage made his brace which, to follow the pattern, we missed the conversion for. Having been behind for the whole match, though, we were now in the lead and looking good.
Of course, this is Irish, so we almost immediately went to sleep and allowed a very soft try. Toulouse managed to move the ball very quickly but a couple of missed tackles had the green line as a series of dots and not the wall that was necessary allowing the French inside-centre, Baby, to touch down fairly centrally allowing an easy conversion for the recently brought-on Ellisade.
The French fly half touched-down again in slightly more controversial circumstances 9 minutes later. A Toulouse attack had nearly brought a try but a well-placed kick from Geraghty put the ball dead in goal before a French hand could touch it. From the drop-out Toulouse pushed back but were well held by the home defence. Having turned the ball over Irish formed a ruck, from which the ball popped-out allowing Ellisade to pick it up and head for an easy score... except Ellisade was our side of the ruck, clearly off-side. The boos rang out clear as the support showed Mr Lewis they weren't happy with his decision but the ref held his hand up - so it was a try.
Delon completed his hat-trick shortly after as some consolation, clearing him, in my mind, for his earlier transgression but the game was lost 24 - 26. One of the four conversions would have earned us a draw, two would have won it.
It was the enjoyable, open game of rugby, pleasing to watch that I had hoped for, and yet many of the 8,834 watching left with a feeling of loss, this despite the fact that a win wouldn't have meant anything. Bad decisions will always happen but this one seemed so inept as to detract from the spectacle of a great game against a great opponent. I look forward to our next meeting and I'll try (with the help of a certain Mr Magner, I suspect) and forget the bad bits from today.
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