News: London Irish vs Northampton Saints Preview

By SAINT_aitch March 18^th 2009

Top o’ the morning to ya!

On the back of two very satisfying wins away at Wuss and at home to Sale, we travel to the largest capacity stadium in the current premiership to face Reading, oh sorry, that should read London Irish, although they’re not actually in London, (unless you head off to the official London Irish at Sunbury) and they don’t have too many Irish in the team, but then we don’t have any Saints in ours so… I digress. ..

I’m looking forward to this one for a couple of reasons; firstly the Madstad is the closest venue to me, living as I do in Basingstoke so I shall be jumping on a train for the 20 minute journey which means that I will be able to join in with the exile’s fans in their Paddy’s day celebrations which, by all accounts, and for my second reason, is that the Madstad is expected to be somewhere near capacity this weekend which will make a pleasant change from my previous visits there where I always found that, in the words of my brother, “you rattle around inside” with spare seats all over the place and huge advertising banners draped over the north and south stands.

LONDON IRISH vs NORTHAMPTON SAINTS

GP: Sunday, 22^nd April 2009. 14:30

MADEJSKI STADIUM, READING

MATCH PREVIEW

In what will be their second home game in a fortnight, our hosts this week are currently suffering a bit of a dip in form after an impressive run from late September up to Christmas when they had weekly wins in all competitions except for a glitch in the EDF cup away to Worcester. Recent form has only two wins in the last seven Guinness Premiership matches against Worcester last week and a tight, rather dull match at Adams Park the week before. Some of the Irish opposition has been tough though with narrow losses to Tiggers and Quins at home, and Gloucester and Sale away with a draw against Bath in between. Saints form, as we all know has been somewhat of a phoenix from the ashes over the past few weeks and, after spending the entire season without success away from home, our recent trip to Wuss a couple of weeks ago was followed by an emphatic victory over an injury and call-up ridden Sale team who, it would seem, have hit a slippery slope at the moment.

On form, any outsider would have to say that this weekend’s game should be in the bag for Irish who currently lie 3^rd in the Premiership table on 51 points against the newly promoted Saints lying 8^th with 38 points but closer inspection of the stats shows Irish have only won one more game than us. What Irish have managed to achieved is the 13 point difference through try bonus and losing bonus points, something Saints have severely lacked this season and we currently only have a total of 4 points through losing and try bonus.

So what of the recent premiership history between our two clubs when playing at the Madstad then? Well recent years have certainly not gone our way. In November 2006 we lost by a demoralising 40 points to 5, in February 2006 we lost 30-3, we did win in December 2004 21-22, and in January 2004 15-36 and back in October 2002 we won 12-14. So the recent form will again have the bookies showing us as outsiders on this game and with our last victory at Reading being on December 27^th 2004, the Irish may have been suffering from a hangover after the Christmas celebrations!

Either way it has not been a happy hunting ground for us for a few years but hope springs eternal and with some international call ups being responsible for a few key players missing this week (albeit from both teams), the Irish are making some impressive efforts without the explosive Delon Armitage and the pairing of Bob Casey and Nick Kennedy so strong in the line out. Recent injuries also to Shane Geraghty, Peter Hewat and the potential loss of Topsy Ojo have strained the limited Irish reserves in all areas of the team. The Irish kicking responsibility has recently been handed to replacement kicker Tom Homer (Doh!) which has enabled them to continue their winning ways.

Despite these player setbacks, there are still some remarkably strong, agile and eye-catching players in the Irish squad and as recent wins will demonstrate, they should not be taken lightly. The excellent pairing of Mapasua and Hala’ufia in the centre is a particular strong point and with the very quick Sailosi Tagicakibau on the wing and the wise old head of Mike Catt to keep order they will still be a formidable force. Incidentally, you may not be aware that, should they both get a run out, we will see the two oldest players in the premiership play this weekend with Mike Catt being just a couple of months older than our Wee Tam.

So to Saints who, in contrast, are doing well in the injury stakes (touches wooden desk quickly!) although we will probably be missing Dylan, Euan Murray and Scott Gray to International call up’s who will Ironically be playing against each other the day before at HQ, (a game which this author has tickets for by the way) but we will hopefully have the pure magic that is Ben Foden to add to the blistering talent that is Paul Diggin with the steely leadership of Nacho Lobbe and Brooce, Brooce, Brooce to support an ever developing impressive centre line up.

Saints are an improving team but how many times have we heard that. They are a team that can provide some impressive and pleasing rugby who then hit low points such as the away game at Quins a few weeks ago when they just did not turn up, or the soul destroying first 20 minutes at home to Newcastle which lost us the game. Surely Saints have now learnt their lessons and these sorts of performances will not be repeated.

We all hope so because when they are playing well, they can be on fire and the whole team enjoy their game and provide stiff opposition to anybody but we will need to be wary of another record that Irish are setting this season and that is for scoring the most tries in the second half of the match, something that Saints are getting pretty good at but unfortunately only at home.

So, Irish vs Saints this weekend could be one of those unexpectedly brilliant matches with other table topping teams being in, what should be at least, easy wins for them except perhaps for Tiggers at home to Sarries which could be a tough call or, the Irish vs Saints game could be another hammering like our previous two visits there. Personally I go for the former as I believe that if we are to go to an intimidating Madejski Stadium, on St Patrick's Day in front of a beer fuelled passionate support buoyed by those infernal drums that this is the time to do it. They have some great players away either on call up or injury and we are not as badly hit, we are on the up, they have had a bad run of results. Let’s get to it and get a second away win on the cards.

Team and score Predictions:

Based purely on the thoroughly enjoyable last weeks match, I will be pleased to see very little change in the line up from that game so my team selection looks something like this:

15 –Big Ben

14 – Brooce

13 – Ansbro

12 – Downey

11 – Digger

10 – Barry the boot

9 – Dickson

1 – Tiny

2 – Sharman

3 – Stewart

4 – Naco

5 – Freddie

6 – Courtney

7 – Best

8 – Sgt Wilson

With Wee Tam, Alex Rae, Smyler and Hoppers amongst the support. Yes it’s the same team we had last week but that was a good performance.

So, once again I will predict that we can win this one. We have the players, we have the determination and if the away support at Wasps and Wuss are anything to go by, we should have the 16^th man in the crowd too. Whether you will be able to hear them over the Irish drums or not is another matter but I reckon it will be a fairly high scoring game, Irish 26 – 32 Saints

Either way, I intend to enjoy myself this weekend, firstly at HQ (not sure who to cheer for, England or Saints players) followed by a trip to Reading. No doubts who I will be cheering for there – Green, Black and Gold.

Sláinte and Come on you Saints.

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