Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
By MickeyMouse
January 4 2009
This might well have been the headline of the match report from the final Season of Gary Gold’s tenure. After Saturday’s demolition of Newcastle on Saturday, this clearly isn’t the same team. After Brian Smith’s first season in charge of the Irish, several unknown players were signed, our academy churned out some pretty handy players and the team was transformed into a team ...
January 4 2009
This might well have been the headline of the match report from the final Season of Gary Gold’s tenure. After Saturday’s demolition of Newcastle on Saturday, this clearly isn’t the same team. After Brian Smith’s first season in charge of the Irish, several unknown players were signed, our academy churned out some pretty handy players and the team was transformed into a team ...
that threw the ball around, scored a bunch of tries and ultimately finished third the season after it looked like they might have gone down.
Injury and squad rotation challenges of our next two seasons rocked the Irish a bit, but the adventure was there. Under Toby Booth’s first season in charge and at the half way point of the season (ignoring Worcester vs Sale being postponed) Irish sit two points clear at the top of the table. Stats don’t lie they say, so take a look at these:
· 11 games played, top of the table by two points (even though we’ve played Sarries (7th) twice and not yet played Northampton (9th)
· 3 games lost, 3 losing bonus points picked up (only Bath have managed to pick up at least 1 point from every game played)
· Points difference of 130, a full 81 points ahead of the next highest (Gloucester)
· The second best defence in the premiership (only Sale has less points shipped, our next opponents)
· 34 tries scored, 3 ahead of the next team (Bath again)
However, if stats are to be believed, the opta stats show have the least rucks, passes and carries. So surely we don’t see anything of the ball!! After the poor performance at Sarries, when we really didn’t get any of the ball, I happily took up the task of writing up the Newcastle match report thinking we’d bounce back, but it would be a solid performance, a couple of tries and a close entertaining match. How wrong I was. What’s worse, I forgot my notepad and pen – which turned out to be a bonus as I’d have given up after half an hour anyway!
Onto the match. On a cold day Newcastle started extremely solidly, ruck after ruck close to our line we were eventually are saved by gaining a penalty. Nearly 5 minutes hammering our line and we manage to clear the ball, but Newcastle’s intent was clear, they came to win. Eventually we head downfield and completely against the run of play we are awarded a penalty, memory tells me it was for going off their feet, but that may be because both sides did this so many times and the French referee was so consistent penalising this I was wondering why the players persisted in doing it!. Anyway, 1 assured kick and 3 points later, Irish are in the lead against the run of play. Newcastle continue to play with endeavour looking for holes anywhere in our line, eventually a 3 on 1 overlap appears on the wing, the pass however was too easy to read and Ojo plucked the ball out of the air and ran in from 40 meters under the posts unopposed. After the conversion, we’re now 10-0 up and still against the run of play. A penalty kick for Rory Clegg, probably for going off the feet was assuredly slotted and that seemed to awaken the Irish…
At this point in the match, Hala’ufia, Geraghty and Elvis were all showing they were up for this match, after a few runs of play, Irish have a line-out from their 5m line. The ball sails over the top to Steffon Armitage who gratefully catches the ball and before a single Newcastle player even notices he has it, we have try number 2. Replays will show that it looked like the ball was in fact headed for Casey, and the ball was contested in the air. Another conversion, 17-3 to Irish and the game is really starting to warm up.
27 minutes played, more holes are being found in the Newcastle defensive line than a colander, the Irish are making some sublime breaks requiring at least 3 defenders to bring players down only for an offload out of hand to find another Irish player hungry for more tries. One happy recipient was Danaher, who scored his 3rd try in 3 games, the cumulative total distance ran for those 3 tries must be at least 100 meters! Not bad for a wing forward! The conversion unfortunately was missed.
It took only a mere three minutes for the line to be breached again. Elvis Seveali'I was having a barnstorming game, punching holes at will. As was Geraghty, finding a hole through no less than 4 players that from on the stands didn’t appear to be there, sloppy tackling or supreme vision? Who knows. Eventually, Elvis is breaking more holes through the Newcastle defence, and ends up with a submilime (cocky?) offload in the grateful hands of Peter Hewatt on a clever reverse line. Naturally being the kicker, he made the most effort to touch the ball down under the posts. The conversion was made and no matter what happened in this game, we would come away with a try scoring bonus point.
The half time score was 29-3 to the Irish, and at this point my man of the match award was Elvis. I was also very grateful that I had forgotten to bring my notepad as it was too cold to be doing all this note taking. I was not very happy that I’d decided not to drink in England in January (I’ll be ok in Italy though, don’t worry!!)…
2nd half and the teams lined up the other way. The forwards were getting a bit fed up not being in the action with Corbisiero leading the charge forwards instead of finding a gap, he just ran through players instead, the last of which resulted in his 3rd premiership try of the season under the posts. A very grateful Hewat lands the conversion. A host of substitutions take place from both sides in the next ten minutes, naturally slowing the game down. Almost every player in the team manages to make a break somewhere, only to find no player to off-load to, Hala’ufia was guilty in the first half of over exuberance trying to offload, a couple of times to players in white, but a solid second half from all players. On 56 minutes replacement scrum half picks up a yellow card, probably for going off his feet – but I’m not sure what the real offence was.
This seemed to jeer the Irish who went for line-outs instead of penalties. We were having a relatively ok day by our standards, but not able to take this attacking platform and scoring tries from them. On 63 minutes however, with the Budgies starting their attacks from further and further away from our try line, one of their players knocked on near the West Stand, this was hacked on and the 37 year old Mike Catt was in a competition with the player on their wing with a foot race from 40 meters, unbelievably, Catt won the race and touched down. Catt had replaced Hewat so kicking duties went to Geraghty, the conversion out wide was missed. 6 tries now… Oh dear…
Not long after, Geraghty, Elvis and Mapasua combined for an awesome break on the East side wing, Mapasua ended up with the ball and 40 meters to run and 3 scrambling defenders. I really thought he was going to make it, but after handing off one defender as though he wasn’t there, the other two had enough to stop him and push him into touch. Not long after Newcastle produced a moment of magic, with a move starting from their own half deft running and passing resulted in Tim Visser with the ball and no defenders left to beat. He scored the try out wide and with Clegg having been taken off at this point, whoever had to take the conversion couldn’t be bothered and attempted a drop-goal, and missed.
The final shout was for Mapasua, with us moving into their 22, and a few phases of play Maps found a pin-sized hole on the Newcastle midfield and ran through for try number 7. Geraghty drop-goaled for the conversion and the final points of the match. 48-8 was the final score, the biggest winning margin in the premiership this season, and for many seasons before. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had to go back to the season Rotherham were in the premiership for the last 40 point gap in the Premiership…
With the Tigers awesome fightback at Welford Road, Irish again sit 2 points clear at the top of the premiership. The result must be demoralising for the Newcastle fans who made the long treck from oop North. The results are good, the stats are good, but there are a lot of questions yet to be answered. The next question is Friday night against Sale, who will want revenge for us knocking them off the premiership top spot and scoring the first try against them since the last game of last season, which happened to be us too!
Moment of the match: Mapasua catches a high ball in his own 22 and runs up field to find a line of Newcastle players and no one in support. He tucks the ball under his arm and runs even faster… A couple of the Newcastle lads will still be feeling that today…
Injury and squad rotation challenges of our next two seasons rocked the Irish a bit, but the adventure was there. Under Toby Booth’s first season in charge and at the half way point of the season (ignoring Worcester vs Sale being postponed) Irish sit two points clear at the top of the table. Stats don’t lie they say, so take a look at these:
· 11 games played, top of the table by two points (even though we’ve played Sarries (7th) twice and not yet played Northampton (9th)
· 3 games lost, 3 losing bonus points picked up (only Bath have managed to pick up at least 1 point from every game played)
· Points difference of 130, a full 81 points ahead of the next highest (Gloucester)
· The second best defence in the premiership (only Sale has less points shipped, our next opponents)
· 34 tries scored, 3 ahead of the next team (Bath again)
However, if stats are to be believed, the opta stats show have the least rucks, passes and carries. So surely we don’t see anything of the ball!! After the poor performance at Sarries, when we really didn’t get any of the ball, I happily took up the task of writing up the Newcastle match report thinking we’d bounce back, but it would be a solid performance, a couple of tries and a close entertaining match. How wrong I was. What’s worse, I forgot my notepad and pen – which turned out to be a bonus as I’d have given up after half an hour anyway!
Onto the match. On a cold day Newcastle started extremely solidly, ruck after ruck close to our line we were eventually are saved by gaining a penalty. Nearly 5 minutes hammering our line and we manage to clear the ball, but Newcastle’s intent was clear, they came to win. Eventually we head downfield and completely against the run of play we are awarded a penalty, memory tells me it was for going off their feet, but that may be because both sides did this so many times and the French referee was so consistent penalising this I was wondering why the players persisted in doing it!. Anyway, 1 assured kick and 3 points later, Irish are in the lead against the run of play. Newcastle continue to play with endeavour looking for holes anywhere in our line, eventually a 3 on 1 overlap appears on the wing, the pass however was too easy to read and Ojo plucked the ball out of the air and ran in from 40 meters under the posts unopposed. After the conversion, we’re now 10-0 up and still against the run of play. A penalty kick for Rory Clegg, probably for going off the feet was assuredly slotted and that seemed to awaken the Irish…
At this point in the match, Hala’ufia, Geraghty and Elvis were all showing they were up for this match, after a few runs of play, Irish have a line-out from their 5m line. The ball sails over the top to Steffon Armitage who gratefully catches the ball and before a single Newcastle player even notices he has it, we have try number 2. Replays will show that it looked like the ball was in fact headed for Casey, and the ball was contested in the air. Another conversion, 17-3 to Irish and the game is really starting to warm up.
27 minutes played, more holes are being found in the Newcastle defensive line than a colander, the Irish are making some sublime breaks requiring at least 3 defenders to bring players down only for an offload out of hand to find another Irish player hungry for more tries. One happy recipient was Danaher, who scored his 3rd try in 3 games, the cumulative total distance ran for those 3 tries must be at least 100 meters! Not bad for a wing forward! The conversion unfortunately was missed.
It took only a mere three minutes for the line to be breached again. Elvis Seveali'I was having a barnstorming game, punching holes at will. As was Geraghty, finding a hole through no less than 4 players that from on the stands didn’t appear to be there, sloppy tackling or supreme vision? Who knows. Eventually, Elvis is breaking more holes through the Newcastle defence, and ends up with a submilime (cocky?) offload in the grateful hands of Peter Hewatt on a clever reverse line. Naturally being the kicker, he made the most effort to touch the ball down under the posts. The conversion was made and no matter what happened in this game, we would come away with a try scoring bonus point.
The half time score was 29-3 to the Irish, and at this point my man of the match award was Elvis. I was also very grateful that I had forgotten to bring my notepad as it was too cold to be doing all this note taking. I was not very happy that I’d decided not to drink in England in January (I’ll be ok in Italy though, don’t worry!!)…
2nd half and the teams lined up the other way. The forwards were getting a bit fed up not being in the action with Corbisiero leading the charge forwards instead of finding a gap, he just ran through players instead, the last of which resulted in his 3rd premiership try of the season under the posts. A very grateful Hewat lands the conversion. A host of substitutions take place from both sides in the next ten minutes, naturally slowing the game down. Almost every player in the team manages to make a break somewhere, only to find no player to off-load to, Hala’ufia was guilty in the first half of over exuberance trying to offload, a couple of times to players in white, but a solid second half from all players. On 56 minutes replacement scrum half picks up a yellow card, probably for going off his feet – but I’m not sure what the real offence was.
This seemed to jeer the Irish who went for line-outs instead of penalties. We were having a relatively ok day by our standards, but not able to take this attacking platform and scoring tries from them. On 63 minutes however, with the Budgies starting their attacks from further and further away from our try line, one of their players knocked on near the West Stand, this was hacked on and the 37 year old Mike Catt was in a competition with the player on their wing with a foot race from 40 meters, unbelievably, Catt won the race and touched down. Catt had replaced Hewat so kicking duties went to Geraghty, the conversion out wide was missed. 6 tries now… Oh dear…
Not long after, Geraghty, Elvis and Mapasua combined for an awesome break on the East side wing, Mapasua ended up with the ball and 40 meters to run and 3 scrambling defenders. I really thought he was going to make it, but after handing off one defender as though he wasn’t there, the other two had enough to stop him and push him into touch. Not long after Newcastle produced a moment of magic, with a move starting from their own half deft running and passing resulted in Tim Visser with the ball and no defenders left to beat. He scored the try out wide and with Clegg having been taken off at this point, whoever had to take the conversion couldn’t be bothered and attempted a drop-goal, and missed.
The final shout was for Mapasua, with us moving into their 22, and a few phases of play Maps found a pin-sized hole on the Newcastle midfield and ran through for try number 7. Geraghty drop-goaled for the conversion and the final points of the match. 48-8 was the final score, the biggest winning margin in the premiership this season, and for many seasons before. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had to go back to the season Rotherham were in the premiership for the last 40 point gap in the Premiership…
With the Tigers awesome fightback at Welford Road, Irish again sit 2 points clear at the top of the premiership. The result must be demoralising for the Newcastle fans who made the long treck from oop North. The results are good, the stats are good, but there are a lot of questions yet to be answered. The next question is Friday night against Sale, who will want revenge for us knocking them off the premiership top spot and scoring the first try against them since the last game of last season, which happened to be us too!
Moment of the match: Mapasua catches a high ball in his own 22 and runs up field to find a line of Newcastle players and no one in support. He tucks the ball under his arm and runs even faster… A couple of the Newcastle lads will still be feeling that today…
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StumbleuponIrish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: The Craic www.londonirish.org (IP Logged)
Date: 04/01/2009 21:49
What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: ascotintheantipodes (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 07:18
Thanks MM - sounds and feels great to be top of the pile.
Long may it continue.
Long may it continue.
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: MadMonk (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 08:43
Great to re-live the experience. Nothing wrong with a long report, it means there was lots to shout about.
Thanks
Thanks
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: mulledwinemarie (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 11:09
BIG AL - well done - great read.........and you were on the T.V.
MWM
London Irish - and loving it...........HC here we come
MWM
London Irish - and loving it...........HC here we come
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: Griff (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 11:12
Pssst... Marie.... It was MickeyMouse!
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: mulledwinemarie (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 11:14
OH NO - Will have to edit p.d.q. - too Many good reports - sorry MM - you were good too!!
MWM
London Irish - and loving it...........HC here we come
MWM
London Irish - and loving it...........HC here we come
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: Props are not stupid (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 11:38
If you forgot your pen and paper, you must have a great memory! Great report for a great game.
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: russell o'callaghan (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 14:08
Good 'un, MM. But, I suppose, with material like that game to work with, you could have gone on the lash for twenty-four hours prior to the match, had no kip, smoked a half a dozen spliffs and still written something that everyone would slap you on the back for and want to buy you a jar.
Russ
Only jokin', of course, MM. It's still a good report!
Russ
Only jokin', of course, MM. It's still a good report!
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: Notso Big Andy (IP Logged)
Date: 05/01/2009 18:47
40 points is safety so no not yet!!
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: SirBurger (IP Logged)
Date: 06/01/2009 09:32
I don't see how sides haev gone down with around 40 points when you consider Bristol only have 9 and Newcastle only have 12. If this a particularly poor season for the lower clubs?
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: Clontarf (IP Logged)
Date: 06/01/2009 11:01
I loved that bit at the end about Maps. It wasn't just that he accelerated into the waiting tacklers, there was no need for him to take them on in that way. He could have gone into contact and recycled the ball but he seemed to do it just for fun.
What a player to have in our team.
What a player to have in our team.
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: MickeyMouse (IP Logged)
Date: 06/01/2009 20:51
Ahh, you guys..! Far too kind!!
MWM: :-(
PANS: Who needs a great memory when ITV4 show highlights these days!!
ROC: I wish I had gone on the "lash for twenty-four hours prior to the match, had no kip, smoked a half a dozen spliffs"
MWM: :-(
PANS: Who needs a great memory when ITV4 show highlights these days!!
ROC: I wish I had gone on the "lash for twenty-four hours prior to the match, had no kip, smoked a half a dozen spliffs"
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: antoinog (IP Logged)
Date: 06/01/2009 23:23
Favourite moment: am I right in thinking it was Steffon in the first half who caught fielded a garryowen, sidestepped a chaser, returned it with interest and was then the first up to prevent a quick throw in?
Or was Saturday so good that I'm starting to let my dreams cloud reality?!
Or was Saturday so good that I'm starting to let my dreams cloud reality?!
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: SirBurger (IP Logged)
Date: 07/01/2009 00:00
No, that did happen! I remembered that moment earlier today! It was a gem of a kick.
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: MadMonk (IP Logged)
Date: 07/01/2009 13:49
Quote:antoinog
Favourite moment: am I right in thinking it was Steffon in the first half who caught fielded a garryowen, sidestepped a chaser, returned it with interest and was then the first up to prevent a quick throw in?
Do you think he might have been trying to impress someone?
Re: Irish 48 - 8 Newcastle:Irish Safe From Relegation?
Posted by: mulledwinemarie (IP Logged)
Date: 07/01/2009 13:51
LITTLE MM - well done - good read )
:
MWM
London Irish - and loving it...........HC here we come
:MWM
London Irish - and loving it...........HC here we come
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