There were a couple of surprises in the squad, in as much as:- Dodge withdrew at the last minute which meant that Darren started at 9 and KB was on the Bench, and although there was a pretty strong rumour that Barry would not be fit to start, he did in fact start at 10, and Shane Geraghty stayed on the Bench.

Irish started the game with a great flourish and looked really dangerous. When Bob nicked the first Pau lineout it looked as though we might be in for a good night. Then when Dougie and La La, shoved them back at the first scrum, we all started to think we might really be on to a good thing. Sadly though, even for all our good work, Pau got the first points on the board after about 7 minutes. On their first real visit to our half, they got a penalty which Mercier of Gloucester fame converted from the 10 Metre line.

Pau 3 Irish 0

Undaunted by this, Irish stayed on the attack and just two minutes later they were on level terms, with Barry converting from midway between 10 and 22 on the RH side.

Pau 3 Irish 3

Encouraged by this Irish really pounded the Paloise defence. The forwards and backs combined well and drove Pau back into the right hand corner, Pau came in at the side of the ruck and gave away the penalty. Barry chose to kick to the corner, Bob won the lineout and the fat blokes gave it a big hurrah. The Pau defence on this one occasion were not up to it and Dougie Wheatley went over for the try in the corner. Barry converted and all was well with the world.

Pau 3 Irish 10

Funny enough, the rest of the half was pretty level in terms of possession and territory. Both defences looked really solid, and both sets of backs were on the edge of off side all the half. This made real good attacking rugby of the structured variety pretty difficult, and so it was just down to individual brilliance. For the rest of the first half and the start of the 2nd, it was Pau who came up with the brilliance bit. First they waited for the writer to go to the toilet, and then worked a brilliant sleight of hand, and according to the French papers, marginally forward pass, to elude Delon and touch down in the right corner, then they worked a good lineout position on the right side, and scored a great try from a front peel, committing our back row at the 2nd phase then quick release for Pbhilippe Carboneau. To touch down just next to the posts. Just to rub salt into the wounds, Mercier of Kingsholm kicked a monster penalty just at the end of the 1st half to send Pau in at the break, having come back from a 10 – 3 deficit to lead by 20– 10

HT Pau 20 Irish 10.

The old team talk worked it’s usual magic, and Irish came out looking slightly less than organised. Within about 5 minutes of the restart we were treated with a loose kick out of defence wich was picked up by the latest of the Dourthe dynasty. On his own 22. He took the ball forward, beat Sacks on the outside, then faced with Delon, he chipped, and beat Sacks and Delon for Pace. (yes that’s right, he beat Sacks and Delon for Pace), to dive on the ball in the left corner and score. The man from the forest of dean missed the conversion, and there we were in a right old pickle, having been equal in everything but the scoreboard and 15 points down.

Pau 25 Irish 10.

From here on in. we stopped all the girly nonsense. Realised that Paus defence in the backline was pretty much impregnable on this day, stuffed the ball up the forwards shirts and made it a tough game. The result was a dominant performance from the pack such as we have not seen this season. We squeezed them on every scrum, and were rock solid on all of our own. The lineout which had been a concern in the first half, now became very safe again, and the big blokes, led, in a MOTM performance from Strudders, just battered their way forward. The result of all this hard work was a traditional performance by LI. 3 penalties to nil by Barry.

Had we not spurned a couple of kickable ones earlier in the half, we would surely have finished level. As it was the fatblokes saved a very dangerous game, from the jaws of a big loss, and we came away with just 6 points to make up in the home leg.

Full time Pau 25 Irish 19.

A couple of points about the game a worthy of note.

Both backlines defended superbly, right of the edge of offside. Rumour has it that Mr Ramage of Scotland who was running the line, was continually communicating offsides to the referee, who studiously ignored him. Again rumour has it that the vast majority of these offsides were against our opponents. Mr. Ramage will be the referee next Sunday.

For my part, here, I disagree. The defences were both up very quickly and right on the edge, making offside a real judgement call. My judgement is that by and large both defences were ON side.

Strudders was MOTM by a country mile, and I think he has now presented the coaching staff with a real dilemma. Nick the ball was sorely missed in the lineout in the first half, but Strudders saved us the game. Who gets the shirt??

And finally, to the Pau supporters who for some inexplicable reason only had one chant, and that chant was……..
….SEX SHOP.

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