When Sharks attack!

"If you can do it behind the ref’s back & get away with it – bigger bonus. If you can get someone to retaliate –JACKPOT!". Maybe it’s called the "Cheapshot Bonus".

If that were the case, the proprietors of “Sale Porsche” will be rubbing their hands with glee as there will be a big, big pay-out in Sale today.

The day started with the crowd asking “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Its Superdog!” as Digger flew though the air with the grace of a Dove. And in true superhero fashion, as he walked of the pitch, the harness made him look as if he was wearing his pants on the outside of his uniform. Then into his Pope-mobile (or should that be Pup-mobile?) for a lap of honour before handing over the match ball.

From one superhero to another: It was then Jason Robinsons turn to take the applause as he popped 5m out of the tunnel before thinking “I ain’t goin’ over there, it’s tipping down”

And on to the Rugby…

Through all of the handing errors, thugary & rain, it may be easy to forget the highlights, and there were some, honest!

The first of which happened just 6 minutes into the game as a good cross pitch move ended with Hoads going over the line, only to be held up by Cueto. The phases following the resulting scrum led to the first Irish penalty as the Sharks were pinged for diving in.

It was here that Declan injured his shoulder. Nobody thought anymore about it at the time as Barry knocked the ball over to make it 3-0 to LI.

The scores were level again just a few minutes later as Braam Van Straaten punished LI for failing to release in the tackle. 3-3.

A few minutes later, Sharks were pinged for a similar offence just inside the LI half. A bit of backchat from a Shark led to the penalty being moved into Shark territory & within the range of a grateful Barry Everitt. 6-3

The rest of the half had LI showing its full repertoire of possible errors, line out, handling, judgement (Barry’s quick 22 drop out to himself that nearly led to a Shark try) & the Sharks showing its own, very full, repertoire of thugary. Pulling down line out jumpers, late forearm tackles, punches, stamps…

In fact it was a line out tackle in the air by Jones on Kennedy that led to a penalty, line out, maul & finally a Shark pull down that led to another kick for goal for Barry. Unfortunately though, that one hit the post & deflected the wrong way.

The half finished in a particularly ugly manor as the Shark pack went for the “Cheapshot Bonus”. Both Turner & Yates were yellow carded within 2 mins of each other for punching & stamping (dis)respectively.

And the Sharks were lucky as both Jones (late forearm smash on Everitt) & one of the other Neanderthals (stamping on Bish) should also have been carded towards the end of the half.

As in many times in the past, LI failed to capitalise on the 2 man advantage. The whistle stopped the monotony of: Sharks taking a line out, kicking into LI 22, LI clear to line out, Sharks taking a line out…

The second half started in the same vein as the first had finished, no not the line outs, but the foul weather induced handling errors & the cheapshots. The only highlight until the 75th minute was a superb kick & collect by Naka before laying off to Horak who himself made good ground.

Then in the 75th minute, a Sharks knock on was reversed following some handbags & Big Bob (I think. Apologies Bob if it wasn’t) giving some Shark a good shove back down to the ground after the ref had interceded. Foolish, but I guess you can only take so much.

Two minutes later, Doug Wheatley stupidly dropped a knee following a line out & was shown the yellow card. Desperate Shark attacking came across resolute Irish defence for the next few minutes. The defence won. Though the Sharks did cross the whitewash, the try was not given due to a clear cross.

The resulting clearance led to an LI scrum, which itself led to a kick & chase. One of the pursuing backs (Digby?) made the stupid mistake of running close to Jones. He certainly didn’t miss the opportunity to get one last late washing line tackle in & wasn’t going to let the fact that the ref was 1m away stop him. And he still didn’t get yellow carded!

Tofty (on for Barry) missed what was, by his standards, a relatively easy kick. He did make up for it 3 min’s later with a longer straighter kick to make the score 9-3 to the Irish. Just enough time for a restart before the ref blew the final whistle.

A few people after the game were commenting that they thought the ref, Wayne Barnes, had a bad game as he should have been tougher on the Sharks. The ref can only ref what he sees or is informed of by a touch judge. If it’s an unseen/reported off the ball incident, what can he do?

Personally, I think he had a good game, yes he missed a bit & should have done something about Jones, but given the weather & the intensity, I will have no complaints. He saw what mattered & reff’ed as he saw it.

The match itself was a hard fought win in atrocious conditions against a team who decided on a forward battle despite having a set of backs that any club would be envious of. The Irish forwards were easily winning most of the legal battles, the scrums, mauls, breakdowns & the Sharks had no answer except to get punchy. But for Gods sake Irish: Sort that line out will you!

I do wonder sometimes why teams decide on a forward battle with us. They rarely win! Maybe it’s because we have such a defensively awesome set of backs. Maybe it’s just the conditions. Either way, keep it there. We’ll soak it up every time.

I’d like to finish by thanking the London Irish team for keeping their discipline in a very ugly game & for not stooping to the levels thrown at them.

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