The first clue to the potential outcome of the day, was carefully planted  in the E-ticket machine at Heathrow “ your reservation is incomplete, this flight is temporarily unavailable”.  Regular travellers will know, that this message normally means, “you will be spending the night in a cheap and horrible hotel”. Ah well, who cares, we can  watch the game on TV thinks the over optimistic supporter, as he glances up, and, to his horror, sees Conor O’Shea at the next machine..

The law of Murphy being what it is, the ensuing events would leave normally serious people gasping at the Irony.

Newcastle airport was closed due to overnight snow and the 09:40 flight, was “delayed” with no further information, so the club acted quickly and changed onto an Edinburgh flight with hastily arranged Coach travel to Newcastle.  As Conor was leading the team through to departures, he jokingly commented to the gathered supporters, “ You lot will probably get there before us”.  He was of course dead right, and with such clear foresight, it is a mystery they changed flights in the first place.

Ah Well.  Life is like that, and 2 hours later, when the supporters were tucking into gourmet sausage and mash complemented  by chateau AG grand Cru, in the excellent Twin Farms pub, next to Kingston park. Conor and the boys were on a bus somewhere near Edinburgh.

As the supporters flight got further North, the white blanket on the ground became more and more solid.  By the time we landed, it was clear that there was a good 2 or three inches of snow in the area, and more forecast for later.  The main topic of conversation was “Will the match go ahead at all”?  The answer was not straightforward.  The pitch was fine.  All the snow had been cleared, and (as verified later by LI players) the playing surface was excellent.  The only worry was, would the LI team show up

So there we were, all fed and watered.  About a hundred green clad supporters waiting in anticipation.  Then about 10 minutes before the game was due to start.  Barry sprinted onto the pitch (Obviously the quickest changer) followed one by one, by the other lads, in various states of undress.  Apparently, (according to a source at the BBC) Irish had asked for the start to be delayed, surprisingly the BBC had agreed, but the nice, kind, and popular Rob Andrew would have none of it.

Now, I know this is a match report, but ……..er……. you see……er    I forgot my pencil, so just the bare bones here.

Two below par teams slugged it out in a bit of an error fest, and basically, the side who made the least errors came out (deservedly) on top.  The Falcons pack dominated the Irish  up front, not because they performed particularly well, but simply because they seemed to want it more.

The Scrums were just a mess for both sides, if this was a boxing match, it would have been called a non contest, as neither boxer landed a punch (so to speak).  The lines out on the other hand, were a clear knock out to the Falcons.  We had the rare sight of Naka over throwing his man on a couple of occasions, and lots of very poor possession for the Irish.  Newcastle on he other hand won (I believe) 100% of their own ball. The loose was anything but loose, with both sides slowing the others ball, and only very occasionally getting pinged for it.

 Defensively, Irish looked much more effective than Falcons, until the ball got past the centres, then for some reason the Irish defence disintegrated.  It looked to me as though we were playing a drift defence rather than our normal banana, and a very poor drift defence it was too.  Falcons on the other hand, had huge gaps in their midfield, but because of the terrible slow ball coming from our recycling, they had plenty of time to get cover across.  I honestly believe that on another day, this same defence would leak several tries to an average attack. 

The scoring sequence was.  3 minutes, Walder penalty 3 – 0,  6 minutes, Tofty penalty , 3 – 3,   14 Minutes, Walder penalty 6 – 3, 21 minutes Tofty penalty, 6 – 6.  30 minutes,   The snow has now started to fall quite heavily and after a poor clearance from Delon, Newcastle win a lineout on the right, move the ball quickly to left, and then after 3 phases, Britz makes a break past poor back row defence, and feeds Grimes for a pretty good try. Walder converts, 13 – 6.  39 minutes Tofty Penalty, 13 – 9.  42 Minutes, Awesome kills the ball about 30 yards out, and pays the penalty for trying to give Mr Spreadbury refereeing coaching for the previous 10 minutes.  Yellow for Awesome, and 3 points for Walder.   Half time score Falcons 16 – Irish 9.

Irish then stared the 2^nd half with 14 men, and although they huffed and puffed a lot, they did not play very smart rugby.  This was demonstrated in the 45^th minute, when Irish won poor ball from a lineout, the backs didn’t even get near the gainline before turning over posession, Horak (I think) fly hacked through and Falcons counter attacked left.  Irish made a real hash of the drift defence leaving Sackey  against a 2 on 1 of Taione and Walder.  Taione made short work of Paul with the fend, and hand on to Walder who scampered into the corner.  If I were a Falcons supporter, I suppose I would say it was a good try, but from an Irish point of view it was a gift.  Anyway 45 minutes, 21 - 9

So you could say, If you wanted to be picky, that the 8 points Irish gave up while Awesome Dawson was in the cooler was the turning point in the game.  You could say, if you wanted to apportion blame, that it was unfair of Mr Spreadbury to bin Awesome for only his second offence.  (Until this point Irish had only given up 5 penalties, one of which was by Kieron).  But that would be uncharitable, when Falcons actually scored two pretty well worked, if poorly defended tries.

After the second Try, it was pretty much all Irish, with concerted, but ineffective attacking.  In the 50^th Minute with Irish hard down on the accelerator, Gareth Archer saw Bobs head sticking out of a ruck and trod on it.  My only beef with Mr Spreadbury comes right here.  The Yellow which Archer received was inadequate punishment for a dreadful act.  It should have definitely been red.  Anyway, Tofty scored the penalty and it looked like game on at 21 – 12.  For the remaining 30 minutes of the game, Irish dominated everything, but made a series of crucial mistakes.  Horak twice spurned overlaps which would have yielded tries.  Irish gave up three kickable penalties, and instead kicked to the corner, twice we lost the lineout, and once the ruck was pulled down  but Mr. Spreadbury had temporary snow blindness.  When he did give a penalty about 3 yards out, Hall Charlton started to run off with the Ball, Gussy, gave him a little reminder about sportsmanship but Smiling Tony disagreed and reversed the penalty.  The only score in the last half hour was a DG to Walder at 66 Minutes to make the final score 24 – 12.

On Balance Newcastle deserved the win, and Irish deserved what they got – Nothing.

So where has it all gone wrong??

Our defense used to be the strength of the team.  We still look organized but then lose concentration and give up easy tries.

In the Guardian Yesterday Conor was talking about all the good ball that the forwards produce, but yesterday Darren and Tofty only got ball with health warnings on it.

And most of all, where is the spirit??

Ah Yes.  That reminds me.  The Falcons management were so pleased with the turnout (4.5K), that they made the bars all free for half an hour after the game.  The green masses were as always a little slow into the hospitality and only managed about 6 pints each before reluctantly leaving behind the Winter Wonderland of the Toon, and any lingering aspirations of a trip to Twickers.

With Sale and Leeds also winning, and therefore three northern sides in the semi final, it might be a nice gesture if we were to bulk up the numbers for the final, and lend a vocal hand to our hosts of yesterday.  You see… You can’t buy friendship with alcohol.  But you can put down a pretty good deposit.

Thanks to the Geordies for your hospitality yesterday, and we will join you in praying for snow in two weeks time.  Good luck.

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