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Wet, Windy and Dismal


Allianz Park

By Millhillexile
January 6 2015

I have never written a London Irish match report before, so go easy on me. Why am I doing it? Well, I love London Irish, love rugby (used to play it, wasn’t very good I might add, but played anyway at outside centre for a junior club) so think I know a bit about the game… Or do I… Anyway, the real reason is a Sarries fan has offered to write the match report for our messageboard and kind as that offer is, I can’t be having that. No, Saracens are my local team, my mrs keeps telling me that I should support them as they are only 10mins away, but she doesn’t understand that London Irish are my passion and whilst I don’t dislike Sarries I could never support them.

Right, enough rambling, so onto match report

How do I do it? Well I will record my matchday experience by writing notes at match- should be easy.

Okay, Its Saturday morning, pouring down with rain, cold but not the coldest 3rd of jan we’ve ever had but miserable all the same. Mrs can’t come to match as she has flu, so son volunteers to take spare ticket. He must be mad. The way Irish are playing at moment, this is a nailed on hiding. Or maybe he thinks we can pull off another shock win like we did last season.

Ko is 2 o clock so leave house at 1pm, enough time for me to get to ground, get a pint of Guinness and watch warm up. It's still lashing down when we arrive, Jebb Sinclair, well it was his double, stops his car to let us cross road to the ground. Gives me thumbs up. Well, I am wearing LIrish top and scarf.

Watch warm up. The boys are going through their drills. Lineout practice. No Paicey today - Harry Allen in, not going well. Overthrows, not to hand hope this is not how game will go. We take our seats in East stand for Ko.

Sarries are playing into wind/driving rain Irish playing with it. Should Help.

 

Straight from the off Sarries signal intent and run ball. Move breaks down with Knock on. Irish scrum. We get free kick but kick to nothing Sarries tidy up and ball into touch. 1st lineout and Harry Allen takes my earlier advice to throw to the front. Good man. The game has an early pattern of Irish playing 10 man rugby- forwards keeping it tight onto Scott then to Shane and hoof. Trouble is, Sarries then get the ball and make inroads. Irish have plenty of possession but not where it hurts. Sarries get pen but go for touch. Touch not found, Topsy keeps In.

Another scrum, we get another free kick. Scrum ok. Deep kick again, Irish win next lineout, maul, penalty coming in from side Tom goes for kick on Halfway line but misses even though had distance.

From kickout Shane kicks long but ball goes dead, so scrum back on halfway. They get pen from scrum and again go for touch. Win lineout, good irish defence and after 7 phases move breaks down. But ref gives offside pen to Sarries and they take the 3 points this time. 24mins gone.

Ball back in play, another knock on, scrum, Irish give away another free kick for going in early Sarries hoist it. Shane catches hoofs it and guess what-it goes dead again. Silly mistake and not learned from earlier. They get scrum back from where Shane kicked and drive. Result- Penalty 22metres out-3points. Its now 6-0 28mins although announcer says 6-3.Wishful thinking.

Shane kicks off, Sarries maul then run it with neat kick through that Alex kicks dead. Dangerous. Scrum, drive quick play and strettle in corner for try on 30mins.Conversion missed but we have given away 11points in 6mins through our own mistakes.

More scrappy play upto halftime give them a scrum pen and us a penalty at the breakdown for them holding on. Both kicked for touch with nothing resulting.

2nd Half

Irish get early scrum pen, go for lineout Saracens infringe and Tom takes 3points. 11-3 44mins

Saracens attack but Alex speedy counter results in another pen to Irish. Tom takes 11-6 48mins

Saracens penalties on 52mins and 56mins result in end of mini revival 17-6.

More scrappy play from both sides until 63min when Strettle scores another try in corner after we had given away another scrum penalty. Conversion missed. 22-6

Sarries are threatening now with every attack while we are huffing and puffing. Damage limitation.

Last minute of game we bring Shane off and send on Myles. Why?

Sarries knock on while attacking again, we get scrum 5m out from our own line but instead of kicking it out, we try to run it, cough it up and they nearly score another one.

Thankfully the ref has had enough and blows whistle.

So in summary Saracens beat London Irish at a canter. The scoreline didn’t reflect the distance between the 2 teams. Yes, Irish worked hard and showed no lack of effort but against a good Saracens side you need more than that.  We relied on breakaways but Sarries always seemed in control and but for quite a few knock ons could have made life easier for themselves.

On the bright side Alex Lewington and Conor Gilsenan both shone and have big futures.

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Wet, Windy and Dismal
Discussion started by The Craic www.londonirish.org , 06/01/2015 10:02
The Craic www.londonirish.org
06/01/2015 10:02
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015:01:06:10:10:40 by Craic Admin.

MickeyMouse
06/01/2015 10:05
Thanks to Millhillexile for stepping in for our match report. Apologies it took so long to upload, got this on Sunday but been swamped since sad smiley

Finno
06/01/2015 12:34
Good report, liked it !

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