By BrianC
July 28 2004

We lose away at Wasps, a game we could and should have won. The Rugby World Cup is now in full swing and this putting somewhat of a dampener on the club game. An Ed’s Diary – 23rd October 2003

Wasps 22 – 15 London Irish. We could so easily have won this but let ourselves down by our own indiscipline. Playing into a strong wind we were 16 – 3 down at half time. We came back strongly in the second half, with 15 minutes to go we were back to 16 – 15. I really thought we had the game in the bag. Then we started giving away silly penalties, end of story.

By all accounts the ref had a pretty dire game. Whilst we often do criticise them I do feel the standard of refereeing is poorer without the three who are away at the world cup, Wright, Spreadbury and Lander. I might start a thread to that effect on the MB.

The World Cup is now in full swing. England have overcome their first big hurdle by beating South Africa. Ireland have a couple of comfortable wins under their belt but now face two tough games against Argentina and Australia. Nobody really expects a victory over Australia, the game against Argentina will realistically be the one that determines a quarter final slot. It will be no pushover.

The site has been relatively quiet over the past few weeks. We’ll end up this month with over 200k hits but that is still less than I’d expect. I’m pretty sure that the RWC is having an impact. A fair sprinkling of our regulars have made the trip down under and, as there is so much happening on the International front, club rugby appears to be somewhat in the shade. The fact that we have no players in any of the international squads is no doubt a further factor.

I’ve purchased a copy of Passion in Exile on an Ebay auction. It is a book published on our centenary (1998) detailing the clubs first 100 years. For me it was fascinating reading, I read it in one day. A couple of things that strike me from reading it is that the club has long had a reputation for being sociable and has always been beset with ‘political’ problems. It seems that those are a part of our clubs culture.