By bisach
November 12 2012

I suppose not advertising that a match reporter was required should get one of the adminstrators punished ... so this is my punishment, the writing of the match report for yesterday. Don't be too happy though, if you get through it you may feel that you've been punished too.

The crowd of a reported 5,757 respected the minutes silence, followed by the last post from Persins.

And then the day went downhill.

Or so it appeared, as the remnants of last weekend's game against the same side seemed to edge into this game. I'd turned to applaud Persins, who'd just returned to his proper seat, when I heard the crowd groaning in unison. I turned to see Dwayne Peel flash by and go over the line to make it LI 0 - 5 Sale Sharks after only a couple of minutes. Not again I thought (Well they weren't quite the words but I know some children and ladies of a pleasant disposition read this MB). Mr Cipriani though, decided to ease our woes by missing the conversion.

There then followed a quarter of an hour of wondering what the heck "Sir" was doing which ended in Cipriani making amends for his missed conversion as he stroked a beauty of a penalty through to extend Sale's lead to 8 point.
The large group of squaddies just back from 9 months placement, no doubt somewhere hot, greeted this with a mixture of cheers and groans. They'd obviously thought to divide their ranks between home and away support. They continued in this vein throughout the match and the only silence was for the minute pre match. Caimh no doubt directed his usual kick etiquette instructions to them ... several times during the game

Not even a losing bonus point in the offing now. Well that's what's been coming to mind even this early during games this season.

Matt Garvey however, finished off some fine forward play to bring LI back into the match after 22 minutes and Ian Humphreys continued his fine kicking form to make it LI 7 - 8 Sale Sharks.

10 minutes later he went on to give LI the lead after a penalty. LI 10 - 8 Sale Sharks.

This must have rankled Mr Cipriani though because a few minutes later he reponded with a penalty of his own before them wlzing through some barely visible tackling to score a try which he then converted to make it LI 10 - 18 Sale Sharks at half time.

A hellish start followed by some good work to bring us back into the match and then we let ourselves down at the end of the half. Well at least there was the good bit in the middle. However, all the talk in the dog pen outside the East Stand at half time was of bad defense, non-existant tackling and wondering what could the club do with the money they pay Sean Edwards.

Something would need to be done at half time if this year's LV= A/W Cup journey was going to go in the same direction as previous year's.

And something must have been said because, even though Cipriani had made it LI 10 - 21 Sale Sharks shortly after the restart, there then followed 20 minutes or so of concerted effort by LI. Starting with Topsy Ojo breaking down the right ably supported by George Skivington who crossed the line to get his 1st try for LI on 50 minutes. He does have a nice way of requesting the defender get out of his way ... with a fine left hand hand off. Mr Humphreys ate further into the Sharks lead my kicking the conversion to make it LI 17 - 21 Sale Sharks.

There then followed 10 minutes of totally inadequately officiated dominance by LI in the red zone. Several scrum penalties and not even a threat of a yellow card if not a penalty try. Mr Tempest wasn't exactly having a storm of a match in the eyes of the green eyed faithful.

Then, wonder of wonders, The Sharks Lead is wiped off the board. Sir had allowed Sale to escape the pressure but, finally, a Humphreys cross kick saw Matt Garvey under no defensive pressure catch and go over the line for his 2nd try of the match to give LI a 1 point lead which Ian made 3 with the conversion. The score now stood at LI 24 - 21 Sale Sharks.

Still plenty of time to get back into game.

See what the previous games of the season has done to supporter confidence.

But no, Mr Humphreys extends the lead with a 75th minute penalty.

And then Shane Geraghty get's his 1st try of his new stint with London Irish to make it at 9 point lead which Ian Humphreys extends to 12 as London Irish Lead 34 - 21 with only 3 minutes of the game remaining.

But, No, that wouldn't follow form this season and, surely enough, London Irish's defense capitulates once more at the end as Charlie Amesbury crosses to reduce the lead to 8 points. Mr Cips then withstands the pressure to win Sale a losing bonus point with the conversion which makes the final score LI 34 - 28 Sale Sharks.

All in all, I'll use the usual cliche of a game of 2 halves to best describe this game. However, it'll take some time for me at least to go though a game which we're leading without thinking we'll capitulate.

London Irish team :
15. Anthony Watson; 14. Topsy Ojo; 13. Sailosi Tagicakibau; 12. Shane Geraghty; 11. Conor Gaston; 10. Ian Humphreys (rep: Steve Shingler, 78); 9. Darren Allinson; 1. Alex Corbisiero (rep: Jerry Yanuyanutawa, 62); 2. Brian Blaney (rep: Gerad Ellis, 73); 3. Leo Halavatau (rep: Cai Griffiths, 73); 4. George Skivington; 5. Bryn Evans (Captain) (rep: Kieran Low, 78); 6. Matt Garvey; 7. Jamie Gibson; 8. Chris Hala’ufia (rep: Alex Gray (51)
Replacements: 16. Gerard Ellis; 17. Jerry Yanuyanutawa; 18. Cai Griffiths; 19. Kieran Low; 20. Alex Gray; 21. Conor Gaston; 22. Steven Shingler; 23. Connor Murphy

Sale Sharks team :
15.Rob Miller, 14.Charlie Amesbury, 13.Will Addison, 12.Mark Jennings, 11.Cameron Shepherd, 10.Danny Cipriani (rep: Corne Uys, 73), 9.Dwayne Peel (Captain), 1. Ross Harrison (rep: James Flynn, 74), 2.Tommy Taylor, 3.Vadim Cobilas (rep: Tony Buckley, 57), 4.Fraser McKenzie, 5.James Gaskell, 6.Andy Powell (rep: kearnan Myall, 30), 7.Richie Vernon, 8.Mark Easter
Replacements: 16.Tom Cruse, 17. James Flynn, 18.Tony Buckley, 19.Kearnan Myall, 20.Will Bordill, 21.Will Cliff, 22.Jordan Davies, 23.Corne Uys

Sir :
Ian Tempest

Editor's note: All spelling mistakes are entirely of my own making.