I read last week that “it doesn’t get much better than this” from one of our correspondents. I have news for you, it does! Successive victories over bogey teams makes for happy Irish supporters.

Let’s get the rubbish out of the way first; Northampton came to the Madejski today positively SHORN of their first team through international call-ups. Thompson and Cohen were away on England duty and Lamont was part of the victorious Scottish side. But hey, the 6 nations happens ever year and I don’t get the moaning when players are called up. It must be said that many people thought that Thompson had in fact come onto the park, such was the state of Northampton’s line out throwing. It must be a training ground thing.

Sadly, due to a family bereavement, Bruce Reihana also missed the game.

It was feckin’ freezing outside the stadium, but **** hardy souls braved the cold to see the game. There are stars, because for some reason, Irish cannot be @rsed to announce the attendance. Well guys, I can’t be @rsed to read the newspaper sites to find out the actual attendance, it is obviously such a feckin’ state secret.

For Irish, Magne was the main absentee, with Topsy warming the bench having been in U-21 England duty on Friday night.

The announcer announced that “at no. 12 and Captain, Mike Catt”. Captain? General more like. PLEASE PLEASE play another season for us Mike, we are not worthy, but we really will miss you if you go.

Games between London Irish and Northampton Saints are never dull affairs (unlike Newcastle). It took 16 minutes of kicking, punching, teasing, prodding, kicking dead, falling apart scrums and some good pushing on both sides before the boy Flutey got the first score of the game through a penalty to put Irish 3 points up. By this time, Delon had come to feel what seems to be becoming a characteristic of his game, the run down in front of the West Stand, the kick ahead to chase, the take-out with the high tackle as he passes the defender, leading to some anxious moments in the stands and off the bench Topsy had begun to warm up. Well, young Armitage is made of strong stuff and got to his feet after a few minutes and proceeded to make a right nuisance of himself for the rest of the game.

From my position high up in the STBR East Stand, I nearly had Vertical Go I was so high up; the Irish defence looked to be aligned too flat in the opening minutes.

General Catt was running the show in midfield. The kicks from hand are awesome, finding touch, bobbling tantalisingly close but coming in to put the defenders under serious pressure from the arriving Sailosi or Delon. We were getting glimpses of King Carlos, but they were only glimpses. I note that Sailosi has taken over Tofty’s locker. He seems to have found the blond dye bottle in any case.

From an Irish lineout, Nick nicks it but it gets turned over in the breakdown. The pass heads to Carlos who tries a grubber but fumbles as he kicks, Mike Horak who is having a much steadier game than the previous start at the Madejski, gains possession, passes to Delon (Horak in passing move – shock) who hoofs it forward, doesn’t get taken out, but will he make it to the bobbling pill before it goes dead? Oh yes! A one-handed touch down sends the Irish support into raptures.

Now, they say that when both sets of supporters think the ref has had a poor game, then he must have been alright. This game was played at pace, that’s the only reason I can think of for the amount of stick that the ref was taking from both sides. It couldn’t be to do with the one-eyed spectators, were they responsible for the mysterious decisions that we saw today?

Spencer got what turned out to be the only score for Northampton in the 23^rd minute with a penalty which was moved forward 10M for back-chatting the ref.

Of the Saints palyers, for my money, only Budgen played like he wanted it. He was everywhere, being a hard barsteward into the bargain. Beefy and he had a titanic battle at the coal face.

What can one say about David Paice today? I had pencilled him in for MOTM long before they announced it over the PA. He did everything right, set pieces were spot on, very high work rate in the loose and crowned with a fine individual run for the try. He can shift too! His throwing into the line out isn’t the bullet that Coetzee launches, it is almost a lazy ball by comparison, but it was unerringly accurate today. David should be rightly pleased with that performance.

Brian Moore spent ages yesterday explaining the unseen heroics of the flankers. “They are the unseen ones”, well there are a fair few Northampton players who got to see all too much of Kieron Dawson, they must have been sick of the sight of him. I commented “Dawson has been everywhere today”, when that wag, BenX answered “and if he continues he’ll be in the bin too”.

Topsy had a spell in the bin, after the ref had consulted the Saints section of the STBR East Stand and they told him in no uncertain terms, OFF! OFF! OFF! Lots of booing accompanied Topsy on his way. Well, we didn’t concede any scores whilst he was off, instead Gussie replaced Bob, Catt fires a trade mark missed pass over Gussies diving body to Paicey (who else?) who draws the defence in and offloads superbly to young Sailosi to dot it down in the far corner. Cue standing and shouting till you’re hoarse.

Could we get 4? Is that too much to even hope for?

Was it just me or did Saints scrummie, Robinson, seem to have carte blanche at the scrum? Referee Barnes was forever telling Dodge to get back but Robinson was all over Geezer at the back of the scrum.

The Irish pack knew they were in a game today. There were sustained periods of forward attrition, but our lads had the upper hand. When Saints did win the ball, there was a lack of invention and creativity. Oh yeah, you hammered Sarries last week, guess what? Sarries were shocking ( I nearly said shoite, they were that as well). A reality check for sure today.

There was for me a telling moment inside the last 20 minutes, Topsy caught the ball right in the middle of the pitch, he looked up, there was Carlos about 6M in front of him, he takes off, Carlos turns and moves to pick up another advancing Irish player. Game over mentally, methought.

Tiesi came on in the second half to replace Nils and looks the part. When I saw him a couple of weeks ago, I thought he was a slip of a lad and did wonder about him being a centre. He answered a lot of those concerns today. He has a low centre of gravity and is very strong.

By now, the fire had gone from the Saints players. Even emptying the bench in under 2 minutes did nothing to change that. The Exiles were firmly in the driving seat. Irish had brought on Murph, Beefy came back on, having gone off at half time for Collins, he now replaced Faan the Man who had taken a bad knock.

The inevitable 4^th try was inevitably scored by O’ Jo, after a fine move up the park, directed by the General who offloaded to Tiesi who beat one, then drew the second defender enough to allow Topsy the 15mm of space that he needs to blaze into the corner.

Blimey, 30 – 3, who would have thought it?

Fair play to the Saints supporters, they hung in till the end, despite their team taking a hiding.

It is hard to believe that this Irish team was virtually identical to the one that were so feckin’ poor against Newcastle 2 weeks ago.

A comprehensive performance from Irish with the players coming off the bench being at least as good as the players that they are replacing. True impact substitutions.

I should say that any opinions expressed are those of the author and not of the Craic web site or it’s editors.

STBR = Soon To Be Reserved, you heard it here first!

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