London Irish
A win's a win
By jimbo800
December 8 2022
There was a lot of anticipation ahead of our first home game in 43 days. The weather has certainly changed since we were last pitchside at GCS, probably still balmy compared to what our northern friends are used to at Kingston Park. I hadn’t even arrived at the game before seeing the update that Benhard had pulled out during the warm up. He has been our stand out player this season and this was the game we were meant to finally click and get the win. Whilst having a pre game drink, I see Tom Pearson walk by with his arm wrapped up and fingers strapped, this day was getting worse. I’d hoped he was just being rested. Anyway, time to take a seat and let the fun begin. As I head down the steps I see a strapped foot resting on the back of my seat. Henry was in the audience alongside some of the other lads. There was time for a quick chat , turns out the timeframe of six weeks out I had read this week was wrong, very wrong. He’s out for 12 weeks. I never thought I’d say this but with all the bandaging I’d witnessed so far, the game would be a relaxing distraction.
I had hoped for a bigger crowd given how long it had been since a home game but it wasn’t to be. Not that the opening exchanges gave anyone anything to shout about. Newcastle were physically dominating the collisions and quick ball was limited. We were really struggling to put any meaningful phases together and too often just flung it wide in the hope one of our wingers would create something. Scrums creaked early on, some cracked altogether. You could see why Newcastle were a team people didn’t want to play away. They strangled us for long periods but to our credit, our defence held up against the physical onslaught they threw our way. For a game with the leagues most dangerous wingers, they didn’t get much ball in the first half.
Irish broke the deadlock with Stokes taking the risk and heading for line ignoring the space outside. He wriggled over after quick ball and a sense of relief was felt by all. Jackson converted. It wasn’t long before Newcastle were able get the ball into the hands of their danger men, Radwan and Carreras combined to go over in the corner. It was as much as they deserved, the score line was about fair at this stage of the game. Irish starting to gain a little more pressure in the right areas, Jackson was successful with two penalties to take a lead into the break. We’ve clearly changed tack and decided that taking the three’s when on offer is the way to go.
Falcons came out firing and looked to dominate the early stages after the break. They scored first after sustained pressure, the ex-Sarries full back Obatoyinbo was actually the player causing us the most problems. Poor kicking from hand yet again, invited pressure on ourselves on more than one occasion. We started to cut out the silly errors and put some real phases together. Jackson took a pass from Ollie’s crash ball and got in under the sticks. This seemed to knock the Falcons who had thrown all their weight at Irish but were repelled more often than not.
After the Jackson score we started to go wide more, Cinti who was a late call up got his first of the day going over in the corner. The game was opening up, Falcons were tiring and we settled into a rhythm were more familiar. Coleman made a try-scoring return off a miss pass by his fellow Aussie at 9. Great to see Adam back, he put him huge hits and carried with force. With Newcastle a man down after a shoulder to the head of Willemse, we were afforded the luxury of spreading the ball into the space, another miss pass out Cinti over for the second of the day. Score line looked like we dominated the game but don’t be fooled. Against anyone else, we would have been punished in the first half for the amount of errors we were making. Playing badly and winning is perfect medicine for playing well and losing over and over again.
Special mention to Basham who happily took on Newcastles bigger forwards and came out on top. Coleman showed his pedigree with his cameo and Chandler showed all the aggression we like to see from our youngsters. Juan showed a bit more of what we’ve expected. Ran with aggression and tried to get over the ball.
Set piece was a real concern, fortunately no damage done. Joseph struggled with the responsibility of playing 13, I think he stifled us a lot during this game, over complicating plays and usually picking the wrong option. I would have liked to see him get another season of wing to ease him into the league without the burden of playing such a big role. Api needs a break, he’s earned it. Gus seems to be off the boil at the moment, Mike Willemse has really stepped up. Stokes didn’t play well, at one point, under no pressure he ran straight into his own man and conceded a needless turnover. I think we will have to start seeing more of our young wingers and Trotter in higher pressure games.
We Won, the most important part of the day!
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Can we now nominate you as our ‘lucky’ scribe and do all home games?
Quote:Shawshank
Great work Jimbo.
Can we now nominate you as our ‘lucky’ scribe and do all home games?
I only volunteer once we’ve got the win in the bag. Not sure my phone screen could take the anger if I had to do one after losing.
