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Saturday's alright if you like that sort of thing

Grrrrr
By Confusedidentity February 23 2004
A rare Saturday game at the Madejski Stadium saw L-I entertain the Leicester Tigers, who were desperate to stabilise a season which had fallen a long way short of their usual expectations.
Irish, by contrast, had exceeded most pundits (and a lot of their supporters) expectations and were looking to consolidate their league position.

For Irish, Delon Armitage came in to replace Michael Horak whose wife had gone into labour and Gussie was on the bench ahead of Spud, who had failed a fitness test that morning. Rhys Buckler was injured in the warm up so a surprised David Paice was plucked from the west stand to take his place on the bench.

Irish started with a good drive from the kick off but were pulled for accidental offside. From the scrum, the Leicester no 10 made his intentions for the day clear by hoisting a bomb to test rookie full back Armitage, but the first of many excellent takes under pressure set Delon up for the day and we cleared comfortably.

Leicester seemed to have rediscovered their old favourite ‘catch-and-drive’ ploy, no doubt due to the return of Johnston and Munster’s favourite, but L-I defended well and forced a turn over.

Already, nothing much was coming off for either side. L-I went 3-0 up on 12 minutes through a Tofty penalty, but there was a good chance down the right but a loose pass into touch before Mr Leyshon called play back for the offside offence.

The Leicester line out was looking shaky, with Big Bob and Strudders stealing a few in crucial positions. A harsh looking penalty for L-I over the top at a ruck (I think the L-I player fell over!) allowed Goode to level on 23 minutes.

Big Bob pinched another throw, O’Sheas made some hard yards and we finally looked like putting something together when Hoads hit a crash ball through the centre. Dec appeared wide on the right to take a long pass but Leicester killed the ball to give Tofty a shot from wide right. That missed, but he converted another shortly afterwards to make it 6-3 when Leicester again killed the ball in a good L-I attacking position.

Scrappy play dominated the rest of the half, with neither side able to sting more than a couple of phases together. Leicester rallied briefly however, and Gibson bundled over in the corner after a couple of phases in midfield and a break by Smith. Goode converted for 10-6 to the Tiggers. Goode nailed another penalty shortly afterwards seemed to jolt L-I into action for a bit, with good work from Dec and Awesome in midfield resulting in another penalty for over the top while we were in a good attacking position.

Tofty missed from wide on the left and Leister belted a quick drop out down field which was gathered by Delon who made about 30 yards up the touchline to set us up. A few decent phases ended when we were turned over, which pretty much summed up our day so far. Goode made it 16-6 at the break from 2 metres inside his own half.

The second half was little better. Dominated by poor decisions, kicks out on the full and other errors, it wasn’t easy viewing

Goode made it 19-6 on 52 minutes before Leicester were finally penalised for killing the ball and Rowntree got a 10 minute sit down, following surges by Casey and Sackey to put us at least near the Leicester 22. Tofty slotted the penalty for 19-9.

It was all fairly static after that, with neither side looking like scoring or, indeed, passing the ball along their backlines, and I’d bore you to death with all the fine details.

A Goode drop goal made it 22-9 and there was no visible way back now for us.

Barry and Gussie entered the fray and L-I finally stepped up a gear with a spell of sustained pressure in the corner. However, clever use of the offside and killing the ball by Leicester meant we got nothing from it, despite Smith( I think) being binned.

A lot of the 10000+ crowd began to drift away and I can’t blame them really. A poor game between 2 poor sides who looked very short on ideas, especially out wide. On this showing, a Heineken Cup place is looking a distant prospect. I’ve already seen other threads debating why we lost, so I won’t go into that-they pretty much cover it. No individual blaming of players either, a collective bad day at the office.

Hoads got MoM, to the surprise of everyone around me. I though Delon was a better candidate, with a mention to Doug for a valiant effort out of position at tight head, but no one really stood out.

Oh well, bring on Newcastle in the cup.

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