London Irish 22 - 39 Leicester Tigers

In fact if you look deeper at the statistics the scale of our defeat on Sunday gets put further into context. The last time we lost by seventeen or more points at home in the Zurich Premiership was the nightmare 2002/3 season when Gloucester thrashed us 19 - 40 on the 10th November 2002.

Leicester were (are) never going to be an easy prospect but after a first win against Quins and having picked up a bonus point at Kingsholm the previous week we went into this game with a measure of optimism. It was not to be our day. In fact we shipped five tries and took our worst home drubbing for almost two years.

Prior to the game I noticed that our warm up routine finished almost 20 minutes before kick off. Leicester on the other hand were on the field until the last minute they could, heading for the dressing rooms only six minutes or so before the kick off. Had we cooled down too much before the start?

It certainly looked so straight from the kick off as Kieran Roche spilled the ball straight to Martin Johnson of all people. This found it’s way at lightning speed to Martin Corry in the middle of the field who crossed the line to put down with only 29 seconds on the clock. This must be one of, if not, the fastest tries in premiership history. An easy conversion saw us 0 – 7 down with only a minute gone.

Nerves punctuated the early subsequent exchanges, this was typified by Delon Armitage, who otherwise I felt had a good game, kicking the ball too long, over the dead ball line, from our own half. A good attacking opportunity thus went begging. Indeed we were subsequently pinned back until 5 mins into the game when we managed to break out. A good run by Delon and some neat passing saw us on the Leics line and looking good for a try when the ball was killed by Johnson in what I felt was a professional foul. The referee felt so too and he was shown a yellow card. Barry, who had an offish day kicking the ball from hand but was flawless from the spot, slotted over the penalty to bring the score to 3 – 7.

Any chance to capitalise on the one man advantage was quickly spurned as Kieran again spilled the ball from the restart allowing the Tigers to yet again set up an attacking platform. We did manage to get a scrum put in some 20m from our line and a chance to clear our lines. Despite having eight against seven in this we lost the ball against the head. The ball squirted out, again at breathtaking speed, to Seru Rabeni who went in at the corner. The conversion was missed but we were 3 – 12 down having gifted them two tries with only seven minutes on the clock. At this stage in my match notes I wrote ‘Are we in for a serious dicking?’

For the next ten minutes or so the game ping-ponged, the best attacking chances were ours with first O’Sackey then Delon stopped a meter or so from the line. On twenty mins Leics were pinged for handling (killing?) the ball on the ground in front of their posts. Barry duly slotted over the penalty to bring the score to 6 – 12.

This time the restart was caught. There was a round of ironic cheers from the home crowd. It was to herald our best period of the game. Whilst Leics always looked very dangerous with Goode kicking through into space our line held. There appeared to be a fair amount of argy bargy in the lineout, after one of these, on thirty mins Johnson was again spoken to by the referee. He was perhaps lucky not to have been sent off. Barry duly slotted this 30m penalty, as he did two subsequent ones from 40m and 42m which were again a result of lineout infringements. On thirty five minutes the score was 15 – 12 to Irish. My match notes read ‘Game On!’

If there can be said to have been one pivotal moment in this game it was on forty two minutes. A dangerous Leics attack appeared to have been thwarted. Not only had our line held but a counter attack looked to be on. Staniforth had broken out and tried to chip through the Leics defence. The ball bounced cruelly for him and ended up in the hands of Geordan Murphy. He split what was left of the Irish defence apart with a kick and chase that led to a Harry Ellis try, we were 15 – 19 down. On the stroke of half time Leics missed a 51m penalty so we went in to the break four points adrift.

The third quarter started scrappily. A drop goal attempt by Barry on forty five minutes was part charged down. It struck me at the time that we had better options not least on the wing where O’Sackey was, as he had been many times in the game, calling for the ball.

Another scintillating run by Geordan Murphy saw Leics gain 50m from well inside their own half to deep in our territory. With our defence in disarray we did well to stop the try but were pinged for offside under our posts. An easy penalty for Goode saw us 15 – 22 behind on 51 minutes.

Shortly after this saw one of the most unpleasant incidents of the game. Delon had caught the ball deep and had lobbed a very nice looking high ball into the Leicester half. He was running for it and looked, with his momentum and speed, to have a good chance of snaffling it from the three tigers players who were waiting for it to drop. As he ran to jump for it his face ‘collided’ with one of the opposition players elbows and he was flattened. To add good measure Johnson then trampled over him. After being treated for the best part of five minutes he came back into the game but he wasn’t firing on all cylinders and was replaced by Tofty some ten minutes later.

At this stage Leicester were dominating the game. It must be said they looked like a class act. Our tackling was scrappy and, whilst we had a lot of possession, we seemed bereft of ideas for doing anything with it. They missed one drop goal attempt then pretty well put the game out of our reach with an Andy Goode try under the posts after our much vaunted defence missed more tackles than I care to mention. As we entered the final quarter Tigers led 15 – 29.

Ironically it was at this stage that we saw the best single piece of Irish play in the game. A good driving attack saw the ball travel the width of the pitch three times before Staniforth punched a hole in their defence and ran to the line for our one and only try of the game. With the conversion and the score at 22 – 29 our hopes were raised but it was to be very short lived. From a Leicester lineout on our own 10m none other than Austin (Satan) Healey tore down our wing untackled to put the ball down. This try was converted, in the sixty ninth minute the score was 22 – 36.

Five minutes later Leicester added another penalty and whilst we pushed at their line for most of the rest of the game we didn’t seriously look like breaking through. After five minutes of injury time the referee Wayne Barnes, who had had an excellent game, put us out of our misery by blowing the full time whistle. The final score 22 - 39.

So what can we take from this game? There are areas that do cause me concern based on this performance. Our tackling was poor, woefully so on some occasions. We expected their pack to put us under the cosh in scrums, rucks and mauls, which they did. What I did not expect to see was the apparent ease with which the likes of Martin Corry could pick the ball up from the back of these then make ten or so meters whilst slipping through the hands of what appeared to be half hearted tackles.

Our continuing inability to score tries is also an area that bothers me. In that regard I see no improvement on last year. Whilst Leicester had play makers in the likes of Goode and Healey who always appeared to be testing us in different ways we looked predictable going forward. The try we did score was wonderful but I am concerned that it only came as a result of the ball being passed the width of the field three times, perhaps twenty passes. How often will we manage that again in this season?

The ability we had a few seasons ago under The Doc to set up and use second phase ball seems to have deserted us. Either that or the opposition have caught on to the trick and have negated it. We had a lot of both possession and territory in this game but often didn’t appear to know how to use it.

To be fair it is not all doom and gloom. Make no mistake about it, this is a very impressive Leicester side, one that looks sure to be pressing for honours at the end of the season. The fact that we stayed in touch for most of the game, even going ahead for a short period towards the end of the first half, stands as testament to the fact that we were no pushover. Our lineout was good and the scrums generally held despite the pressure exerted by renowned Leicester pack.

In the end we were well beaten by the better team in a game that was well refereed. We can have no complaints about the result. It's time now to put this behind us and move on.

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