London Irish (8) 20, Saracens (0) 3

Although our forwards dominated the game in terms of possession and territory, unbelievably this game was closer than the score line suggests. Sarries were within a score until the last few minutes and there was an acute danger of a travesty of a result occurring. Happily, two tries in the dying minutes put a satisfying gloss on a fitful performance by Irish against a very lackluster Sarries.

Irish had a chance to open the scoring after 6 mins when a Sarries forward refused to roll away from a ruck. A difficult 47-metre chance, right on the edge of Barry’s range, was too long for our kicker as he made poor contact. This brought to an end a fine place-kicking streak by Barry of 14 kicks going back to the Twickers double-header.

Irish were putting Sarries under pressure throughout the first quarter but then letting them off the hook again with a succession of poorly directed Garryowens easily claimed by the Sarries full-back Kydd. Despite some fine breaks by Catty and Awesome, Irish also blew two or three good chances on the Sarries try line with stupid knock-ons or poor option-taking.

As time drifted by without a score, Irish fans began having that sick feeling in the pit of their stomach that all this pressure with no points surely would come to haunt Irish.

But at last on 28 mins, a great steal of the loose ball on the floor by Irish saw play driven up to the Sarries 22 only for the former French skipper Raphael Ibanez to kill the ball illegally, and not for the first time by a Sarries forward. Referee David Rose bravely got the yellow card out and we were playing against 14 men, 3-0 up thanks to the simple Barry penalty.

We made the extra man count on 33 mins when we drove up to halfway after another promising Catty break. Then, we had a bizarre piece of good fortune. One of our players appeared to knock the ball on when fumbling a pass, but Rose sounded no whistle. The Sarries defence momentarily froze and that was enough as we were clever enough to shoot play down the East Stand blindside. For once, every Irish runner correctly drew their man and passed, Catty doing so in exemplary fashion to give Bish the overlap. Our veteran winger showed impressive speed to burn off the Sarries cover and he skated the 30 yards in for a thrilling try in the corner. The conversion angle was a bit too wide for Barry and so the score stayed at 8-0.

The hope that this confidence boost would engender more accuracy in our play, also boosted by the loss of influential Sarries forward Richard Hill, was dashed right before half-time when we squandered yet another glorious opportunity on the Sarries try line. This time a poor pass and a knock-on by Staniforth meant the score remained 8-0 at the half-time break.

Sarries made a significant tactical switch at half-time, bringing off their ineffective young fly-half Ben Russell who kicked and passed poorly, in favour of the one-dimensional kicker Nicki Little. Most Irish fans were happy that Castaignede stayed under-utilised at outside center.

But it was more of the same in the second half, the Irish forwards setting up good field position close to the Sarries but a mistake nullifying the chance. On this occasion, a Catt knock-on a few yards out lifted the siege on the Sarries line.

But the visitors finally got a sniff of points when an Irish forward interfered on the floor and gave Little a long shooting chance of about 45 yards. Happily for us, his kick sailed under the bar.

Simon Railuwi, the Sarries forward who is out of favour after having signed a contract to play in France next year, was brought in from the cold and put on as a lock replacement. Hilariously, he warmed things up too much and after indulging in a bit of silly handbags, was given a sin-binning, perhaps a little harshly.

Once again this allowed Irish to pile on the pressure but more try chances were bombed thanks to wayward passing and another Staniforth knock-on. Barry was replaced with Catt moving to fly-half and Nils Mordt coming off the bench to play inside center for the final quarter. Strudders also replaced Nick the ball, and a few minutes later, Darren came on for Paul Hodgson.

Horak then sparked our best bit of rugby in the game. Fielding a speculative Sarries kick deep in his 22, he marked but immediately flung a huge pass across to Catty, who took off from the 22. The ball was shipped out to Geoff Appleford and as Irish surged over half-way, it looked as though Staniforth was put away with a clear run to the line. Alas, the Sarries chasers did brilliantly to drive him into the corner flag in a last-ditch attempt.

Irish suffered bad luck with 15 minutes to go with Catt going off injured. This brought on Delon but left the Irish backs in a state of confusion about who was playing fly-half. Paul Hull was reduced to desperately mimicking a kicking motion with his foot on the sidelines to get Delon into the right position for defensive scrums in our 22.

Roche replaced Murphy on 67 mins and alas his knock-on at a scrum inside our 22 created the confusion during which we gave away a stupid penalty, which was easily kicked by Little to leave the score at 8-3 with plenty of time still left for Sarries. Our gloom deepened when a magnificent raking kick by Little took play straight away back inside our 22.

It was at this point Sarries could have snatched the game. Fortunately, we had a huge stroke of luck. A speculative hoof by Declan from inside his 22 sailed towards the Sarries goal-line and fortunately rolled no further than the Sarries in-goal area. Another few yards and Sarries would have had an attacking scrum inside our 22.

More confusion at the back of our scrum ironically led to our salvation. With good field position inside their 22, Darren Edwards hung a few yards off the back of the scrum expecting the pass. It never came as Roche was engulfed by Sarries tacklers. A brilliant bit of quick thinking by Awesome rescued the day. He broke to the blindside grabbing the ball off Roche (Awesome was in front of Roche so he almost certainly did so illegally), and suddenly Awesome had created a blindside overlap. He timed his pass perfectly and Delon sped the 10 yards over the line close to the West Stand corner flag. At 13-3 after 75 mins, the game was won, even without a hooked
conversion kick by Delon.

A desperate Sarries team started playing catch-up rugby inside their own half and it was no surprise they turned the ball over. Michael Horak picked the ball up just inside the Sarries half and in one of his winding, swerving runs, he thrillingly shredded a demoralised defensive line, his strength shrugging off the lone cover defender to power in for a superb individual try. Delon could not miss this one and game was wrapped up at 20-3.

Sarries set a poor benchmark to judge Irish by but we can be very pleased with the work of our front 5. Ron Hardwick carried the ball further and more often than in all his previous games this year and Russell also proved an excellent point against his old club. Awesome was outstanding yet again and a good choice by Gary Gold for MOTM. Murphy had an uneventful game with no great busts, but his skills and decision-making at the back of the scrum were a step forward for us.

Hodgson and Catt were excellent in the backs, and Bish showed he has a few years left in him yet, looking as strong and lively as he has ever been in an Irish shirt.

There are still too many mistakes, knock-ons and misplaced passes for us really to have too many pretensions about moving much higher than lower mid-table, but with Leeds, Auch, Worcester and Newcastle the next teams visiting the Madjet, I wonder if we won’t be looking up the record books to see the best series of home victories in Reading so soon after laying this 11-month bogey.

Alas the crowd of 7,047 was not great but a run of home losses is bound to have some impact eventually.

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