Molly Malone ?
It's not the losing, it's the nearly winning...
Molly Malone ?
By Griff
April 24 2005
Another week in the ZP and another “nearly but not quite” for the exiles. The prospect of playing Bath the week after they failed to turn up for a cup final was never very promising, but as it turned out the better team lost.
Molly Malone ?
April 24 2005
Another week in the ZP and another “nearly but not quite” for the exiles. The prospect of playing Bath the week after they failed to turn up for a cup final was never very promising, but as it turned out the better team lost.
It all started fairly predictably, Bath took Irish on at full tilt showing a lot of flair and ambition. The home defence at first looked shaky but it held and then began to look solid. Sadly, before it completely solidified a fine Bath move got the ball out quickly to Frikke Walsh on the left wing to give Bath a well deserved try. Olly Barclay did well to convert from the touch-line leaving a lot of worried home supporters and Bath 7 – 0 up.
While we all feared the worst the team started to pull itself together and even made it into the Bath half occasionally. After a couple of forays Bath had given a penalty away about 40m out, maybe 15m in from the left side. Not a foregone conclusion but we have been so spoiled by Barry that we were shocked to see him hit the post. The players didn’t let it put the off though and hit the counter-attacking Bath team hard, quickly earning a second penalty. This time it was much closer, so close that Barry even took it back to close the angle and it was on the right of the pitch, meat and drink to the “magic right foot”. A terrible contact pushed left and the home support got very, very worried.
Still, however, the team’s heads stayed up and further pressure from a fired-up Irish pack gave a third penalty which Mr Everitt had the decency to convert.
With points on the board there was no stopping Irish, Bath looked a bit shocked – they had clearly expected, like so many in the stands, that Irish would simply fold. The opposite was in fact true and the Exiles put together some of the best attacking rugby they have played this year. The home team was off-loading well from tackles and making territory but when Bath successfully slowed the ball Irish rucks were solid and the ball recycled cleanly. On one Bath ruck they left the ball in a little too long for Neil Hatley and Beefy simply carried the two or three Bath players off the ball giving us a turn-over.
The pressure kept Irish in the Bath half of the pitch and eventually led to a further penalty which Barry kicked safely, At an Irish ruck James Scaysbrook had wriggled his way through to our side, when the ball popped out he was clear and simply picked the ball up and stood up. Ashely Rowden considered this enough to bin the visitor which was, to my mind, in keeping with the laws but a bit harsh.
With only one-point deficit and a man advantage Irish continued their excellent play. Keeping Bath pretty-much pegged in their own half and stretching the visiting defence on a number of occasions. One surge saw Delon Armitage pushed just wide as he crossed the whitewash. A rare Bath visit into the Irish half yielded a penalty but Barclay was kind enough to miss it. Irish-nemesis Malone, however, covered the rare error with a drop-goal to put the visitors 10 – 6 in front.
Not letting this get to them Irish put together phase after phase of scintillating rugby. You may want to read that sentence again, it simply hasn’t happened much this season but they were superb. Their efforts came to fruition when a series of hard drives by the pack led to a quick spinning of the ball out to Michael Horak on the left wing who was moving so fast that even had the Bath defence tackled him he would have crossed the line on sheer momentum. Cracking stuff and the first Irish try at the Madejski for a long while. Barry duly converted and it was 13 – 10 to the Irish at half-time.
Shortly after the teams re-appeared for the second half it was obvious Bath had received a rocket in the changing rooms as they came back showing the class and ambition they’d begun the game with. The home side hadn’t given up but Bath’s will-power drove them into them forcing some very stretched defence.
In one of many surges into the Irish 22 Duncan Bell was only-just felled by a retreating Irishman but dropped the ball forward, still it’s only a knock-on so Ashley lets it go. Then Belly pulls the ball back towards him so that the Bath support can recycle the ball, O.K. that’s a penalty but Mr Rowden is still willing to let play continue and Bath take advantage of a very stretched Irish defence and with some fine passing (if you ignore the forward one right at the end) get the ball out to Zac Feunati who scores an otherwise brilliant try. Olly Barclay had clearly seen these errors and had the decency to miss the conversion.
Both teams had now decided to play rugby and a very entertaining game of cat and mouse ensued. Neither defence was giving away silly penalties, which was a miracle given how each attacking moved stretched them nearly to breaking point. Finally Irish succumbed to Mr Rowdens whistle, straying off-side and Olly stretched the Bath lead to 18 – 10.
As the battle continued Bath were caught holding-on as the massive performance of the Irish pack put them under pressure and Barry repaired the damage. This was all the home team needed to spur on a final push and the play was suddenly all in the Bath half, some desperate Bath defending finally yielded a penalty straight in-front of their posts and an Everitt kick later we were a mere two points adrift. The Irish onslaught continued with Bath looking more and more vulnerable, another penalty gave Irish the lead with only 8 minutes of normal time to play.
This seemed to focus Bath and they started to push back but play stayed pretty much even. A hopeful deep kick from Malone dropped behind Delon on thre Irish right and he turned to gather it with Bath runners coming at him fast. Changing his mind, rightly, and instead of kicking the ball he passed it to Horak in the centre of the field. I suspect it is a pass that will haunt him for a long time, it was terrible and Michael would have had to have been super-human not to knock-on. He tidied it up but the damage was already done.
Most of this season our scrum has looked frail but today it was magnificent, however, with Rob Hardwick off for a second blood-replacement it was going to be fairly even. This pressure scrum was going to be hard and the two sides packed-down and pushed, the Bath team seeming to wheel left and continue going. The Irish players all stood up expecting the restart (with their put-in) but the Bath pack kept going. Ashley blew his whistle just before they crossed the line. He re-set the scrum returning the put-in to Bath, I have no idea why. If he didn’t consider that the scrum had wheeled then Bath were well within their rights to score a try, if the scrum wheeled Irish should get the put-in. As it was a second scrum was set with similar results, again a Bath put-in was called. And then a third. After this, and some fine boot-lace work by Rob Hardwick’s replacement Doug Wheatley, La la returned. The final scrum was held solid and Bath chose the more obvious route. The ball rocketed out to that man Malone again and he, predictably, dropped the ball neatly between the posts.
As the players returned for the re-start Mr Rowden signaled that there were 4 minutes of injury time remaining. Irish threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at their opponents. After an initially flawed plan of kicking behind Bath the boys settled into a fantastic series of forward drives, knowing that a penalty was our safest bet. The drives pushed closer and closer to the posts and the re-cycling was brilliant, every ruck solid and clean ball being picked and rushed forward for a gain of anything from a few inches to 10 yards.
The Irish machine edged its way up the pitch and Bath, to their credit, stayed disciplined and gave nothing away. The final act was to be drop-goal glory… or not. With a ruck on the Bath 22 the ball was fired to Barry Everitt who made to drop the ball but, uncharacteristically, instead simply fumbled it forward. A knock-on and the end of a thrilling game. Irish 19 - 21 Bath.
The conclusions we can draw are many and varied, we are certainly playing with a lot more fire and ambition but we have the tendency to let a couple of points lead stand as enough. Once in the lead it’s as if the guys think that’s enough and it very rarely is. As we agreed in the drummers enclosure, it’s not the losing that gets to you it’s the nearly winning.
While we all feared the worst the team started to pull itself together and even made it into the Bath half occasionally. After a couple of forays Bath had given a penalty away about 40m out, maybe 15m in from the left side. Not a foregone conclusion but we have been so spoiled by Barry that we were shocked to see him hit the post. The players didn’t let it put the off though and hit the counter-attacking Bath team hard, quickly earning a second penalty. This time it was much closer, so close that Barry even took it back to close the angle and it was on the right of the pitch, meat and drink to the “magic right foot”. A terrible contact pushed left and the home support got very, very worried.
Still, however, the team’s heads stayed up and further pressure from a fired-up Irish pack gave a third penalty which Mr Everitt had the decency to convert.
With points on the board there was no stopping Irish, Bath looked a bit shocked – they had clearly expected, like so many in the stands, that Irish would simply fold. The opposite was in fact true and the Exiles put together some of the best attacking rugby they have played this year. The home team was off-loading well from tackles and making territory but when Bath successfully slowed the ball Irish rucks were solid and the ball recycled cleanly. On one Bath ruck they left the ball in a little too long for Neil Hatley and Beefy simply carried the two or three Bath players off the ball giving us a turn-over.
The pressure kept Irish in the Bath half of the pitch and eventually led to a further penalty which Barry kicked safely, At an Irish ruck James Scaysbrook had wriggled his way through to our side, when the ball popped out he was clear and simply picked the ball up and stood up. Ashely Rowden considered this enough to bin the visitor which was, to my mind, in keeping with the laws but a bit harsh.
With only one-point deficit and a man advantage Irish continued their excellent play. Keeping Bath pretty-much pegged in their own half and stretching the visiting defence on a number of occasions. One surge saw Delon Armitage pushed just wide as he crossed the whitewash. A rare Bath visit into the Irish half yielded a penalty but Barclay was kind enough to miss it. Irish-nemesis Malone, however, covered the rare error with a drop-goal to put the visitors 10 – 6 in front.
Not letting this get to them Irish put together phase after phase of scintillating rugby. You may want to read that sentence again, it simply hasn’t happened much this season but they were superb. Their efforts came to fruition when a series of hard drives by the pack led to a quick spinning of the ball out to Michael Horak on the left wing who was moving so fast that even had the Bath defence tackled him he would have crossed the line on sheer momentum. Cracking stuff and the first Irish try at the Madejski for a long while. Barry duly converted and it was 13 – 10 to the Irish at half-time.
Shortly after the teams re-appeared for the second half it was obvious Bath had received a rocket in the changing rooms as they came back showing the class and ambition they’d begun the game with. The home side hadn’t given up but Bath’s will-power drove them into them forcing some very stretched defence.
In one of many surges into the Irish 22 Duncan Bell was only-just felled by a retreating Irishman but dropped the ball forward, still it’s only a knock-on so Ashley lets it go. Then Belly pulls the ball back towards him so that the Bath support can recycle the ball, O.K. that’s a penalty but Mr Rowden is still willing to let play continue and Bath take advantage of a very stretched Irish defence and with some fine passing (if you ignore the forward one right at the end) get the ball out to Zac Feunati who scores an otherwise brilliant try. Olly Barclay had clearly seen these errors and had the decency to miss the conversion.
Both teams had now decided to play rugby and a very entertaining game of cat and mouse ensued. Neither defence was giving away silly penalties, which was a miracle given how each attacking moved stretched them nearly to breaking point. Finally Irish succumbed to Mr Rowdens whistle, straying off-side and Olly stretched the Bath lead to 18 – 10.
As the battle continued Bath were caught holding-on as the massive performance of the Irish pack put them under pressure and Barry repaired the damage. This was all the home team needed to spur on a final push and the play was suddenly all in the Bath half, some desperate Bath defending finally yielded a penalty straight in-front of their posts and an Everitt kick later we were a mere two points adrift. The Irish onslaught continued with Bath looking more and more vulnerable, another penalty gave Irish the lead with only 8 minutes of normal time to play.
This seemed to focus Bath and they started to push back but play stayed pretty much even. A hopeful deep kick from Malone dropped behind Delon on thre Irish right and he turned to gather it with Bath runners coming at him fast. Changing his mind, rightly, and instead of kicking the ball he passed it to Horak in the centre of the field. I suspect it is a pass that will haunt him for a long time, it was terrible and Michael would have had to have been super-human not to knock-on. He tidied it up but the damage was already done.
Most of this season our scrum has looked frail but today it was magnificent, however, with Rob Hardwick off for a second blood-replacement it was going to be fairly even. This pressure scrum was going to be hard and the two sides packed-down and pushed, the Bath team seeming to wheel left and continue going. The Irish players all stood up expecting the restart (with their put-in) but the Bath pack kept going. Ashley blew his whistle just before they crossed the line. He re-set the scrum returning the put-in to Bath, I have no idea why. If he didn’t consider that the scrum had wheeled then Bath were well within their rights to score a try, if the scrum wheeled Irish should get the put-in. As it was a second scrum was set with similar results, again a Bath put-in was called. And then a third. After this, and some fine boot-lace work by Rob Hardwick’s replacement Doug Wheatley, La la returned. The final scrum was held solid and Bath chose the more obvious route. The ball rocketed out to that man Malone again and he, predictably, dropped the ball neatly between the posts.
As the players returned for the re-start Mr Rowden signaled that there were 4 minutes of injury time remaining. Irish threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at their opponents. After an initially flawed plan of kicking behind Bath the boys settled into a fantastic series of forward drives, knowing that a penalty was our safest bet. The drives pushed closer and closer to the posts and the re-cycling was brilliant, every ruck solid and clean ball being picked and rushed forward for a gain of anything from a few inches to 10 yards.
The Irish machine edged its way up the pitch and Bath, to their credit, stayed disciplined and gave nothing away. The final act was to be drop-goal glory… or not. With a ruck on the Bath 22 the ball was fired to Barry Everitt who made to drop the ball but, uncharacteristically, instead simply fumbled it forward. A knock-on and the end of a thrilling game. Irish 19 - 21 Bath.
The conclusions we can draw are many and varied, we are certainly playing with a lot more fire and ambition but we have the tendency to let a couple of points lead stand as enough. Once in the lead it’s as if the guys think that’s enough and it very rarely is. As we agreed in the drummers enclosure, it’s not the losing that gets to you it’s the nearly winning.
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