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In The Bleak Midwinter


Ricoh Arena

By Big-Al
December 23 2014

Off to Coventry for the first Premiership match at Wasps new home, but far more important than Wasps having a new home is the first London Irish Supporters Club Supporters Coach for quite some time.   

Note: There is a little blatant advertising in the first couple of paragraphs and indeed most of the rest of this report – so I would like to point out to those being blatantly advertised, that any freebies you may wish to send as a thank you should go to Big-Al and not to the Craic editors (though we're not averse to a freebie to say thanks either! - ed). The London Irish Supporters Club Supporters Coach arrived at the first pick-up point on time, and a nice large and luxurious coach it was. There is a tradition amongst the well-seasoned coach traveller to bring nibbles to share with their fellow supporters on the journey – so no sooner than the second and final pick-up had been made, bottles of bucks-fizz were opened and the first of the sausage rolls made their way around the coach. My contribution was the Marks & Spencer Lochmuir Smoked Salmon and Soft Cheese Mini Bagels – those very nice people at Marks & Spencer do some really nice nibbles (Note: Other supermarkets and other nibbles are also available, but they are not as good as the Marks & Spencer Lochmuir Smoked Salmon and Soft Cheese Mini Bagels). Each coach traveller was presented with a goody bag from those very nice people at Guinness – as well as the useful bag itself, we got a beanie hat, pin badge, bottle of Guinness water and some Guinness tokens to allow us to have a couple of free pints of Guinness at the Ricoh. Admittedly, the very nice people serving at the bars at the Ricoh did not seem to have been trained in the art of pouring a very nice pint of Guinness but as it was free, I shouldn’t complain – and I have had worse pints at the MadStad!!! Anyway - thanks to the very nice people at Guinness for the goody bags and tokens.

We arrived at the Ricoh on schedule – as I had consumed a fair amount of nibbles on the coach, I did not sample any of the food on offer – however from talking to a few fellow supporters, it seems that the food was a little on the expensive side, the service was a little on the slow side and what I saw being eaten didn’t look particularly appetising (but maybe someone used to the very nice Marks & Spencer Lochmuir Smoked Salmon and Soft Cheese Mini Bagels just has high standards). 

There did appear to be plenty of food outlets and bars around the place. I found the service at the bar was reasonably quick and noticed that the prices were cheaper than some places (MadStad).

 RicohChips.JPG

Wasps had done well in filling the stadium for their first match at their new home – although I was told by one of their very nice “Coventry Ambassadors” that 10,000 freebies had be given out + staff at one or more of their sponsors got tickets for £5.

 

There were free Wasps flags at each seat – so their efforts to turn the Ricoh Black and Yellow were successful.

The official attendance was given as something over 28,000 – I’m not sure of the capacity of the Ricoh, so I’m not sure how accurate that figure is. I think that Wasps deserve to be congratulated on their efforts – the question is though, how many of the 28,000 will be there on a cold, damp afternoon in the middle of February. 

It will be interesting to see how things develop at the Ricoh over the remainder of this season and into next – how soon will be sky blue seats be replaced with black and yellow seats? Will the bar staff be trained in pouring Guinness? Will the food look more appetising? And what can they do about the pitch, which was cutting up from the first scrum.

On to the match itself – a few of you were there and I expect many more watched on TV, so as I’m sure you all know what transpired, I’m not going to go into detail on every incident and every point scored. The first half wasn’t too bad, there was not much in the way of scintillating rugby, but we did score the first try at the Ricoh.

 Ricoh Arena View

Andy Goode had already scored the first points at the Ricoh, slotting over 2 of the many penalties we conceded, when we managed to disrupt Wasps possession in their 22, Blair Cowan retrieved the loose ball and his pass found Geoff Cross who crossed the whitewash from close range, Tom Homer added the extras and we had the lead. We had the lead again a little later on after an exchange of penalties and if it wasn’t for the number of penalties we gave away, we could have been ahead at the break. I would like to blame an inexperienced referee influenced by a large, passionate home crowd for the high penalty count against us - OK, I know the penalty count against us seems to be high in most games of late and although it was a large and at times noisy crowd, they have a long way to go to match Welford Road or Kingsholm – but I’m sure there were one of 2 dodgy calls and in a close game they can make the difference.

The second half was not so close, we didn’t register on the scoreboard at all and Wasps ran in 4 tries and added a couple more penalties to the 6 they converted in the first half. We did have some possession in the Wasps 22 and late on went close enough to the line for the TMO to be asked to check and we made Wasps wait until the last play of the match to secure their bonus point. I’m not sure how the referee can be blamed for our second half failings, so have to concede that Wasps deserved their win, Andy Goode with 33 points (1 try, 2 conversions and 8 penalties) was deservedly named man of the match. It is difficult the nominate a London Irish man of the match, some of usual suspects – such as Blair Cowan, Andrew Fenby, Tom Homer, Shane Geraghty had reasonable games and as a team we did OK-ish for the first half and we were still just about in touching distance of Wasps going into the final quarter – but we were undone by some rather depressingly familiar failings – we didn’t play for the full 80 minutes, we gave away far too many penalties and we rarely looked dangerous when in possession.

Post-match I used the last of my tokens from the very nice people at Guinness and had the usual de-brief with fellow supporters. Then back on the London Irish Supporters Club Supporters Coach for the journey home and to finish off the nibbles, including a couple more of the very nice Marks & Spencer Lochmuir Smoked Salmon and Soft Cheese Mini Bagels.

The next London Irish Supporters Club Supporters Coach will be for the match at Saracens on Saturday 3rd January – there are still some places available on this coach – please visit the Supporters Club website for full details and to book your place - http://londonirishsupportersclub.org/about/away-travel-general-advice/away-coach-travel-to-saracens/ 

Merry Christmas everyone, see you all on Boxing Day.

Come on you IRISH!!!!

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In The Bleak Midwinter
Discussion started by The Craic www.londonirish.org , 23/12/2014 17:00
The Craic www.londonirish.org
23/12/2014 17:00
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b.q.f.m
23/12/2014 18:07
Good report.
Lovely Marks & Spencer Lochmuir Smoked Salmon and Soft Cheese Mini Bagels.
Excellent Bucks fizz.
Splendid little cheesy things from Frank.
Very posh coach.
Stadium and match not to my taste.
One more mention for the Marks & Spencer Lochmuir Smoked Salmon and Soft Cheese Mini Bagels.
All in all a good day out but won't be going back there in a hurry, enjoyed the coach more than the match so well done LISC.

Alphacat
24/12/2014 13:13
My version of the second half, in emoticons:

(Sm21)
(Sm21)
(Sm21)
(Sm21)
(Sm112)
(Sm89)
(Sm80)

Finno
24/12/2014 13:17
Just bought some 'Marks & Spencer Lochmuir Smoked Salmon and Soft Cheese Mini Bagels' for grazing in front of the telly tomorrow night...with those reviews they MUST be good !

Alphacat
24/12/2014 13:19
http://asset1.marksandspencer.com/is/image/mands/CL_FD_F04C_00505055_NC_X_EC_0?$PDP_PROD_IMAGE$
They do look pretty good.

src



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:12:24:13:19:39 by Alphacat.

b.q.f.m
24/12/2014 14:11
Just wondering if I have time to nip down to M+S to get some?
They really are yummy, hope they make a first team appearance again on the coach to Sarries!

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