By St Dom
January 31 2011

The Madejski Stadium - the venue for the penultimate pool match in this year's LV= cup. If I were Liverpool Victoria - giving the amount of money they do - I'd ask for it back - not because of the rugby - but because of the awful format and marketing! Well Air Own St Dom was there (I know because he cut me dead - I must have upset him more than I thought!!)His thoughts are here:-

Men 37 Boys 20

Yes, this was men against boys, a powerful, determined and ultimately scornful display that left Saints' boyish team in tatters.

Saints enjoyed some success in the early stages, but it wasn't long before Shane Geraghty, returning to his alma mater, found himself tackled by three London-ish thugs, and the treatment was repeated every time he got his hands on the ball. It was a tribute to his guts and gumption that he remained on the pitch until the 71st minute but, by then, he had lost his bonnet and pretty well lost the plot as well.

We missed the old crook, Bob Casey, utterly talismanic for Irish for so long, but more recently more manic than tail-up... However, Kennedy and Roche performed admirably in the air and on the ground (off their feet in both elements, of course, but Casey was the master of this trade), and although the experience of Eustace and Sorenson mitigated the damage, they could not resist the tide of fired-up and frenzied Madejski-ites, all with a point to prove after a dismal season.

Never mind: the LV= Cup competition was always designed for teams to introduce new faces and to trial different patterns of play. Maybe not a wholesale change of personnel, as in Saints' case, but the message was clear - It's not about winning, it's about performing...

So who performed? 
In the first quarter, my jaundiced eye was caught by the nervous whistler from Wales, an arbiter who had never previously crossed my radar. James Jones took a while to decide on his thought for the day, and it turned out to be the forward pass, which became his favourite transgression. But for his homework, I would advise Mr Jones to peruse Law 15.7 (c), which deals with the Nomadic Exiles' dark arts, expertly displayed by the egregious Steffon Armitage:

Players falling on or over the players lying on the ground after a tackle.  If players wilfully go off their feet to seal off possession then they are correctly penalised.

 
London Irish were not merely wilful, they were positively enthusiastic!

In fairness to Mr Jones, his was not the star performance. This berth is reserved for Topsy, Mopsy and Cottontail: the powerful and destructive running of Topsy Ojo, the mighty Mopsy Mapusua and the silky skills of Sailosi Tagicakibau, who were irresistible and far too smart for Saints young tyros. Thankfully, there were one or two wise heads among the novices, or the damage might have been deeper. Eustace, Sorenson and Easter in the pack, and Bruza and TinTin among the backs were there to guide the youngsters and, to an extent, they did, but 11 to 15 in Irish shirts proved too clever and too persistent. Four of their five tries were scored by scrummagers, with only one by Dan Bowden, making a rare foray at inside centre, but these statistics mask the fact that all the line-breaking, ball-spinning, wide-running of the Irish midfield earned the ultimate reward and allowed the dirt-huggers to bag the glory. 

Waller's injury after 29 minutes was a key factor in London-ish breaking through the barricades. He didn't leave the field until just before half-time, but he was present on the pitch in name only for about 15 minutes, which allowed the home side to begin their try-scoring spree. And when Dreyer came on, he soon demonstrated that he needs a far more dynamic approach to rugby football if he is to be considered a serious prospect. Towards the end of the first half, the runners released Irish hooker Blaney to score twice in the left corner, and with only two penalties by Ford, the score was 18-6 to the hosts.

With only about 8.000 spectators in the stadium, the Madejski match experience felt decidedly lonely. It is a fine stadium, but at about a quarter full, the spectacle lacks atmosphere, for all the drums, horns and trumpets that sporadically assaulted one's eardrums. And my Irish friend, who kindly invited me to the game, offered the most accurate comment on the game and the context: "In the first half, the game didn't get out of first gear," opined Roe, and who am I to disagree with a Reading regular? In truth, the most exciting moment of a largely defence dominated first 30 minutes was the sight of a stunt plane looping the loop above the main stand. 

At half time, a squadron of Hell's Angels on motorbikes zoomed up and down the touchline, their engine noise drowning out the announcer who was presumably announcing their relevance to the proceedings. I made the dismal error (which I shall never repeat) of ordering a pint of Guinness from an itinerant seller with a barrell of the stuff strapped to his back. He poured me a pint of froth and took my £10 note, promising to return later (which he did) with the change. But whatever was in the beaker, it wasn't Guinness by any stretch of the imagination, and when I say my change was only £6.20, you will understand when I felt, if not disgruntled, very far from gruntled, as PG might have said.

The second half was more entertaining. Double try-scorer Blaney was despatched to the naughty step, and Sharman scored a try after some clever picking and driving, which Joe Ford converted. But the effect of this impertinence was to goad Irish into life and they galloped in four more tries in a blistering 25-minute spell. End of contest.