by OxonRob
(photos by Cormac)
Apologies for taking a while with this report. The excesses of the weekend, you will understand, put paid to New Year’s Day!
In seasons past it has been the custom for some amateur reviewers to tear our team apart, following a defeat. This report will not do so, for it is not necessary to rend our garments and don sackcloth and ashes, or to declare the end of our club as we know it.
Let’s get a perspective on this. In sport you are going to lose occasionally. On Saturday afternoon, in front of 18,122 people, London Irish came second to the English champions of the last three years. That is no disgrace, and it is fitting to give credit where credit is due. Well done, Wasps…. Damn you!
In a fast, furious and exciting match which will have enthralled many TV viewers, little quarter was asked or given, and the home team stayed competitive until the final whistle. Indeed, after scoring an excellent forwards’ try in the second half, the Exiles looked quite capable of getting at least a bonus point. Albeit the better side finally won, the developing London Irish squad have nothing to be ashamed about, and our coaches will have learned much of value for the future. I do not doubt their ability to put that knowledge to good use.
Our selection
Whatever Brian Smith may have said beforehand, we did not field our strongest team, something which was emphasised when the Irish performance up front actually grew stronger in the second half, as substitutions were made. By then our backline had been emasculated, however, with a scrum half on the wing, a number 8 playing inside centre and a fly half playing scrum half.
Brian Smith’s coaching team had little choice but to make 12 changes to the team which had narrowly beaten Saracens four days earlier. That match followed two hard ones against Agen, which had occasioned a raft of injuries – and we still have the visit of Leicester to look forward to, in a week’s time. How’s that for the RFU’s match-scheduling and stated desire to protect players from burn-out?
Pre-match, some observers had reservations about the relative attacking merits of the two selections. The Exiles backline looked solid and professional, built for tackling, but perhaps without the blistering pace to break out and turn the tables if things went against us – as they did. However, the pace and experience in the Wasps threequarter line suggested the ability to produce scores from nowhere, and so it proved.
An overview of the game
During the first half, in the tight, it seemed that things were roughly even, the two tight heads exerting considerable legal violence on their opposing loose heads, despite the Irish pack being seven stone lighter than their opponents. In the line-outs it was a different matter, as Irish stole a considerable amount of Wasps ball, often in the relief of critical defensive positions.
We have almost come to expect this as a norm at London Irish, but there are few sides at any level capable of turning in such larceny to order, and every time, ref, every time. A quite extraordinary feat. Many of the press plaudits, not to mention Barnes’s Man of the Match Award, have gone to Nick Kennedy for this, but line-out dominance is actually a team effort, involving all the jumpers, the lifters and the thrower, and calling for precision from all of them in positioning, technique and timing.
It was in the loose and at the break-down that matters started to get out of hand, both teams seeming capable of turning over the other’s ball. In fact turnovers were sometimes exchanged! However, this was an area in which the superior skill, experience and sheer bulk of the Wasps back row counted for a great deal, and well and bravely as Irish competed, the pestilential influence dominated and put Irish on the back foot too much of the time.
Wasps simply played the way we were trying to play - but they did so better, with more power, more pace and more precision. Well, they did so in fits and starts anyway. However, they have been practising a long time.
This in turn resulted in a lot of slow ball for the Exiles, and poor Ross Laidlaw at 10 receiving the ball with no space or time in which to do anything, often collecting man and ball together, as the Wasps rush defence (or is it now a blitz defence?) was mighty.
We had problems getting over the gain line for much of the game, and this summarises the essential difference between the two teams and the two defences.
How did our new boys do? Pretty well, considering the quality of this baptism of fire. It is hard to think of too may things that either did wrong when they had a choice. It was inevitable that Laidlaw at 10 would be more visible than Thorpe, beavering away at 6 (where even Richard Hill, the maestro, is often thought to be invisible.) Both tackled their socks off; both made errors of judgement; both did good things in offence. Neither man cost his side the game. Both are worth more game-time.
Key Moments
Extended aerial ping-pong is finally resolved in favour of an Irish line-out, but at the very first Wasps line-out, on half-way, Nick Kennedy takes the Wasps throw, and Lewsey is penalised for tackling Horak without the ball. From the ensuing line-out, Laidlaw spins the ball down the line to Armitage who is boxed in. Within moments, Strudwick has broken blind from a five metre ruck, but Edwards knocks on a poor pass.
7 minutes
Sackey gets the ball behind half-way and jinks up through several tackles, finally losing possession when he and Catt glance off each other, Catty receiving a huge bump on his forehead from Paul’s elbow as he dislodges the ball. Very fast release from the ruck sees the ball travel at speed down the Wasps line to Dallaglio who manages to pass several feet behind his own three man overlap! Play is recalled, however, doubtless to spare Laurence’s blushes. Penalty to Wasps - for offside, I think.
0-3 after 8 minutes, courtesy of van Gisbergen
Unlike Voyce who has been demonstrating speed but little brain, Stuart Abbott, in the Wasps centre, is playing delightfully, choosing lines of running which repeatedly open up the Irish defence like an over-ripe melon. However, following another superb close break, he now slings a long overhead pass to Lewsey and connects with Armitage instead. Delon sets off upfield, but chooses to kick ahead. He is finally bumped off the ball by the chasing hooker, Ibanez! Reddan takes the ball back and dots down over the line in the arms of Catt. Tim Payne suffers at the shoulders of Rautenbach in the following scrum. Penalty to Irish. Ross’s first chance. No problem, but what was Spreaders doing, having a long conversation with our pack while Ross prepared to kick?
3-3 after 12 minutes.
Murphy collects the deep kick-off and passes inland, to the floor behind the bemused Thorpe and Armitage, and to the feet of the onrushing Wasps. What an example to set his juniors! O’Connor goes over from the ensuing scrum but is held up. Wasps gain a penalty under the posts from their subsequent all-out assault on the line.
3-6 after 15 minutes
Nick Kennedy steals his second Wasps line-out inside the Wasps 22, and we attempt to rumble over. No dice, no matter how hard we try. In desperation Catty grubbers behind the flat defence straight into the arms of van Gisbergen who kicks long, over the heads of our back two. We return the compliment and Wasps are pinged for not releasing. Laidlaw obliges.
6-6 after 18 minutes
For all that we give the impression of being blown away in the loose, we have actually been frustrating Wasps at every turn, even if we have looked a little ponderous in our few attacks. Presumably, vespine egos have been bruised by this resistance and by one or two Irish rubs of the green, for they move the ball left at speed, down the line to Dallaglio, lurking at ‘inner wing.’ He is face-to-face body-bumped by Armitage, but easily manages to lob the ball to Voyce who is lurking outside. Voyce, tackled by Horak, immediately ships on to Lewsey, coming through the inside gap at speed. Armitage still being enmeshed with Dallaglio, Lewsey is chased in vain by Dawson and Murphy. A very good try.
6-13 after 24 minutes
Kennedy successfully hunts down the kick-off but while we retain possession we are forced further and further back behind the gain line, Thorpe eventually knocking-on behind the half-way line!
(photos by Cormac)
Rautenbach is penalised in the ensuing scrum. Wasps take at the back of their line-out in the corner, and while it seems as though the Exiles have stopped or even beaten their rolling maul, Joe Worsley suddenly breaks free and canters over for a try, converted by Van Gisbergen.
6-20 after 28 minutes and looking grim
Wasps go offside in front of their posts virtually from the off. Laidlaw converts.
9-20 after 29 minutes
Pressure is applied for many minutes by Wasps in the Irish west stand corner, but Kennedy finally comes to the rescue again, stealing the Wasps throw and enabling Mafeking to be relieved at long last.
Hodgson replaces the injured Feau’nati on the wing after 38 minutes, and Delon attempts a 57 metre penalty from inside the Irish half. He doesn’t miss by much! We are soon left to reflect on a game in which we are being gallant rather than threatening. I put this down to the aggressively fast Wasps central defence, aided and abetted by their back row.
Half Time
Coetzee is on for Flavin, and Erinle replaces Abbott for Wasps.
Laidlaw attempts his own long-distance penalty after two minutes. It is fine for length but slides past the right upright.
The next few minutes are all Wasps, who camp on the Irish line, and commence the war of attrition for which we earlier had not had the patience. Staunton breaks between the Irish centres, and passes to Skivington who unloads to Ibanez in the tackle. Ibanez only has to flop over. It sounds easier than it was.
9-27 after 7 minutes
Our two scrum halves, Edwards and Hodgson, attempt a miniature assault of their own in the Wasps corner before Casey and Hatley come on for Strudwick and Collins. It is noticeable that Hodgson is trying to get to his man Sackey at the same time as the ball, and generally succeeding.
50 minutes
Dallaglio tries to break blind from a Wasps scrum on half-way. He is well-taken by Thorpe and well penalised by Mr Spreadbury. Laidlaw kicks to the corner, where we produce a rather messy rolling maul from the back of our line-out. First Laidlaw and then Catt go on their own, Catt receiving impacts from replacement prop Mckenzie’s head and from an apparently Irish boot in the frantic ruck which follows. Edwards goes open, then flips the ball back between his legs to Casey who drives over. I’d like to think that this was a moment of unrivalled skill, the subject of inventive planning. Well, why not? Laidlaw converts the try, and since our scrum has been looking fairly forceful, in the tight, we start to wonder if a forwards-led comeback is on the cards.
16-27 after 52 minutes
Catty’s head looks a mess and we later learn that he has a fractured eye socket. He is replaced at inner centre by Juan Leguizamon, normally a no 8. Juan towers over his new colleagues. Dallaglio is sent off for fighting in the ruck which produced the try. However, my impression is that Kennedy was a bit lucky not to go as well, for he was illegally holding Laurence-dear down in the ruck long after the ball had gone, and then attempted to haul him out by the shirt. Naughty Nick!
Despite our new-found ascendancy in the set pieces, and greater impact and conviction in our loose play, the rest of the match is all Wasps. They are pressing all the time, and one starts to think that kicking back to them for any reason is a bad idea - unless one finds touch.
60 minutes
Laidlaw takes the fly-hacked ball in open ground at the back, with hordes of striped Vizigoths bearing down on him and no help at hand. He makes to kick but sees an invisible gap inside, and discovers too late that it isn’t a gap but a trap. Although he fights gamely to stay on his feet, and to my mind does so, Spreaders pings him for not releasing and an easy three points beckon. Van Gisbergen obliges.
16-30
Three minutes later, Ross gets his revenge.
19-30 after 63 minutes
Points to note in the rest of the match
· 65 minutes. Dallaglio returns from the bin and steals an over-thrown Irish line-out.
· Coetzee gets turned over twice.
· 69 minutes. Edwards pulls something and is replaced by Everitt. A perplexed Hodgson retires to his wing, supplanted by a fly-half!
· 70 minutes. Armitage escapes censure for a late tackle on the newly arrived Matt Dawson.
· 70 minutes. Wheatley replaces Rautenbach.
· Laidlaw, among others, is doing a lot of tidying up at the back, and doing it well, a calming influence.
· Leguizamon is playing centre like a good flanker, and giving the Wasps backs plenty of tackling practice.
· Van Gisbergen misses two kicks at goal (72 and 78 minutes)
· We steal another line-out.
Relentless pressure coughs up another Wasps try. Worsley goes on the burst, Dawson flips it to the ever-present Skivington and the lock dives over for the bonus point fourth try wide on the Wasps right. Van Gisbergen misses, but Ian McGeechan won’t care.
19-35 is how it finishes
Now all we have to worry about is whether we can put out a strong team against Leicester this weekend. We sure as hell owe them a performance, but do we have anyone left in the locker room?
If we have our first-pick pack, I believe that we do have the firepower up front. If we don’t …..
Sadly it seems that Flutey, Catt, Skuse and Magne are out of things for a while, and possibly Edwards and Feau’nati.
