I got to Sunbury just in time to catch the Dalia Maria, who took a core of about 35 supporters, including two birthday girls who were expecting a present from our rugby team, and at one point it looked like their wishes were going to come true.

This time I have decided to follow Griff’s technique of recording on my mobile phone rather than taking notes, so let’s hope it works. As a member of the male species I am not the best in multi-tasking, so drinking my AG while banging the bodhran and recording the match report at the same time proved a challenge too far. I accidentally dropped my pint of AG as the match was kicking off, to the laughs of the Tigger supporters around me in the terraces.

London Irish were playing against a strong wind in the first half. Tigers enjoyed the first few phases of possession and won their first line out, which was well contested by Irish, as it was the resulting ruck. After the game I was told that Phil Murphy got a twisted finger and a broken nose from these starting phases of play. The man managed to stay on for most of the game until replaced by Leguizamon late in the second half. I take my hat off for this man.

The recordings on my phone, or at least what I can make out of them, talk about an organised Irish defence stopping the Tigers’ charges with strong tackles. Phil Murphy had no option but pick and run from the back of the Irish scrums that were looking quite vulnerable, as they were competing against one of the best front rows in the premiership: Stankovich, Davies and Castrogiovanni, with Kayser and Julian White waiting for their chance on the bench. The damaged they caused in our front row was such that we ended up playing uncontested scrums in the last 5 minutes of the game, to the boos of the home crowd.

We are now exchanging hip flasks on the coach and I have got inside me a nice combo of port and brandy, Irish whisky with honey and an Italian almond liqueur. It may be cold and miserable outside, but I feel on top of the world now. This is funny: a place like Leicester, covered with one way systems. Their rugby and football teams play at home on the same day and at the same time, but the found the solution to all their problems by changing the rugby kick off from 3:00 to 2:45. I still don’t get it.

Right, back to the game and a very active Rabeni testing our defence with huge attacking hits. As a prop I don’t know much about the back moves of the girls, but it looked to me that Tigers game plan of going for the inside pass all the time was not achieving the desired effect for them. Still, Tigers enjoyed all possession and territory, but we managed to keep them away for… 7 minutes, when their pass to the inside channel eventually worked, and the ball was then moved swiftly to the wing for Vesty to score. Humphreys took the tricky touchline conversion, although he had the wind on his back. 7-0 after 7 minutes, one is not looking too confident.

I have just run out of space in the feather boa’s label, but Bren has broken down my box of chocolates so now I have plenty of cardboard to write on. Clever boy this Bren, don’t believe all those horrible things people say about him!

Tigers got the ball straight from the restart and we are getting more of the same, with Tigers having all possession and territory helped by a strong wind, and the Irish players having to put the tackles. I am sure our tackle count today went into three figures.

Our first bit of useful possession was an individual effort by Tagicakibau, who was stopped 5 meters short of the line. Tigers managed to slow our ball down, but a very keen and active Hodgson was making sure of our continuity in attack. I was also amazed how Dodge managed to bring down Leicester players twice his size and weight running at him.

I can’t believe I have written this much without mentioning the ref, who was no other than Spreaders. The Tigers supporters have a love-hate relationship with him. More hate than love, I would say, and he was highly criticised by the crowd every time decisions were not their way. While he didn’t have any impact on the final result, my recordings at this point say that he missed two Tigers knock-ons and a high tackle. He was just his usual self, very talkative and never stopped smiling.

Defence outpowered attack and every single phase of play was slow ball coming from a ruck, then another ruck, maul, ruck… you get the point. It was too windy to play champagne rugby, and only the team that was playing with the wind could gain any advantage by kicking.

It was eventually Steffon the one who broke the deadlock, and after one burst he managed to put a powerful Tagi in a scoring position down the left wing. 7-5 after 25 minutes, as Delon’s touchline conversion attempt was blown away by the wind.

The next few minutes it was all Tigers and some desperate defending by Irish combined with a couple of “hospital passes” prevented any further scores, until Delon kicked us into the lead with a well stuck penalty: 7-8. I don’t know if we deserve the lead, but I am not complaining. If we can manage to go to halftime with this score all the pressure is going to be on Leicester, who will play against the wind in the second half.

It wasn’t going to be, as we conceded a penalty that put Tigers back in the lead: 10-8. I would still be happy to go to halftime with this score, as a losing bonus point was all we hoped to get from this game.

Murphy’s Law applied, and in what I thought it would be the last play of the first half Seru Rabeni, their most active attacking player today, scored his try. Conversion was missed, so 15-8. As the scoreboard already signalled the 40^th minute, I assume it’s halftime and I go for my nicotine fix, but Spreaders decides that we should play for a further 5 minutes, in which Irish are very close to score and it is Leicester this time the ones that have to do some desperate defending.

I speak to a few Tiger supporters at half time. All a very friendly bunch and may I add very respectful when we took our kicks. Tigers are the Man United of rugby: big club, big support base, loads of money and hugely successful over the years. It also has to be so easy to support a team that loses an average of one home game per season, and this season they have already lost the one against Gloucester.

Second half starts and Irish take advantage of playing with the wind, so they have all the territory, but didn’t manage to score a single try in this half. It was not because of that they didn’t try hard enough, it was mainly because the Leicester forwards did a very good job on wearing down our players in every single scrum and every single ruck, not always legally, but very effectively. Props Castrogiovanni and White scored in a half that was dominated by forward play. And, as it happened in the first half, just when we thought we were going to come home with something, we didn’t. Both sets of supporters agreed in the end that Irish didn’t deserve the “nil point” (you are supposed to read that in French), but the late try from White sealed the five points for the Tigers, and left us with a disappointing 25-17 defeat. We lost again in Leicester by 8 points, but we can leave with our head high knowing that we have put the effort in.

There was a presentation to Sam Vesty at the end of the game, as it was his 100^th cap for the team, and he was given a school cap. Castrogiovanni was named as man of the match, Rabeni was named tackle of the match, but our honours go to the first black captain ever for London Irish, who had to leave the ground after breaking his hand: Mr Seilala Mapusua.

We stayed in the stadium chatting to a very friendly bunch of Leicester supporters, who were telling me about the plans of increasing the capacity of their stadium, which is not big enough for over 14,000 season tickets holders, and there are thousands of fans on the waiting list to get a ticket for their Heineken Cup games. Will be have that problem one day? I really hope so.

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon