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An Irish ata ag Teacht!

Given their current standing, it's sometimes easy to forget that the Exiles reached the Heineken Cup semi-final in 2008, and lost the Aviva Premiership final to Leicester by a point, a year later, with a team which featured Steffon and Delon Armitage and the evergreen, no pun intended, Mike Catt, at lock, and current Northampton and England prop Alex Corbisero on the bench. As the departure of England wing Marland Yarde to Harlequins, and failure to retain Australian back James O'Connor, at the end of last season proves, Irish are still losing some of their best players. That said, after some lean years, they are starting to regroup under new ownership, with a greater emphasis of the Irish connection, both in playing and commercial terms, and buoyed by a brand new training facility at Hazlewood, not far from the club's spiritual home at The Avenue in Sunbury-on-Thames. Soon after the dawn of professionalism, they moved first team matches to the Stoop, and then as a consequence of the merger with London Scottish and Richmond, both of whom are now fortunately revived, moved out to Reading. Although crowds are relatively stable, at around the 7000 mark, it is only the annual St Patricks Day Party game which draws anything like a capacity crowd. particularly given their absence from top flight European rugby denies them the potential of big matches against the Irish provinces. Given the departure of Wasps from London, and the likely surge in interest post Rugby World Cup, it could be a good time to move back to the capital, especially if they return to their competitiveness of the late 2000s.

 

Looking at the history between the clubs, back in 1997, Saracens won 25-10 at the Avenue, and they won the return 29-21 at Vicarage Road, whilst 1998/9 brought a 40-26 win for Sarries at Vicarage Road, who made it four straight wins with a 26-21 late season win in Sunbury. September 1999 saw the Exiles finally turn the tables as a 28-23 win was claimed at Watford, but the return, with Irish now in the Stoop, saw a 41-27 win for the visitors. The first meeting of the clubs in Reading, in September 2000, brought a home 27-22 win, but in Vicarage Road the following March, Sarries prevailed 35-22. The following season is not one Saracens will want to be reminded of, as on a Thursday in November 2001, the Exiles claimed a 55-13 win in Watford and completed the double just over a month later as they earnt a 30-23 win in Berkshire, making it three league wins in a row in the next campaign, as they celebrated a 32-10 home victory and completed another double by winning 14-12 at Vicarage Road. November 2003 brought a fifth straight win for the Exiles with a 34-31 away win, but that was where the run of victories came to an end as Saracens finally redressed the balance by claiming a 20-14 success at the Madejski. However, Sarries were humbled again on the next visit, in October 2004, 20-3, and Irish claimed the upper hand in the return too, 30-12. Just after Christmas 2005, Irish won 20-19 at Watford, and picked up their second double in a row by wunning their home game 30-18. Finally, Saracens won in January 2007, 19-8, and added a 22-7 win in March for good measure, in a first double since 1999/2000. Sarries took the run of wins to three by winning 24-20 in November 2007, but lost out 27-24 at Reading, returning in November of the next season to lose 27-14, but in a game just after Christmas, won 16-13 at Vicarage Road in front of over 16,000, one of the biggest crowds at the venue.

 

Rolled into the London Double header for 2009/2010, at the start of the "new era",  Saracens won the Twickenham "home" match 18-14, Glen Jackson and Andy Saull getting the tries, but another festive game, this time at Reading, saw a 23-19 win for London Irish, in front of nearly 20,000. The following season saw the roles reversed, as Irish hosted the game at Twickenham and came out with a 33-16 bonus point win with contributions from Delon Armitage, current squad member Topsy Ojo and Sailosi Tagicakibau, as well as a penalty try, as Sarries paid dearly for having Alex Goode in the sin bin. Saracens set the record straight with a tryless 12-6 win at Watford in January 2011. as Owen Farrell got all of the points in what was Brendan Venter's last game as Director of Rugby. No tries either in December 2011, although Farrell got five this time in a 15-11 home success, whilst the following April saw Saracens hand Irish a seventh straight defeat, winning away 28-19 through a Will Fraser try and 23 points from Charlie Hodgson, whilst the hosts got two tries from Delon Armitage. September 2012 saw Saracens turn on the style with a 40-3 bonus point win in the double header thanks to Chris Ashton's brace, and contributions from Brad Barritt and Nils Mordt, but Irish gained revenge in their home match by winning 29-16, as Tom Homer got 19 points for the hosts. Into last season, then, and the Twickenham opener saw Jamie George lead the way with two tries in a 42-20 bonus win, with Chris Ashton and Mako Vunipola also on the scoresheet. However, their last visit to Allianz Park saw Irish win 22-13, outscoring the hosts three tries to two, through Alex Lewington, Matt Parr and George Skivington, as Marcelo Bosch and Schalk Brits responded for the home side. Back in September, this season, Saracens won an epic match 36-32 as Lewington collected a hat trick, alongside a Blair Cowan score for the hosts, but a try at the death by Billy Vunipola claimed victory after earlier efforts by Tim Streather and Richard Wigglesworth.

 

That early season match with Sarries proves how dangerous the Irish kicking game can be, with fly half Chris Noakes and scrum half Scott Steele doing the damage on that day, but the other combination of Shane Geraghty and former Munster scrum half Tomas O'Leary can be equally as effective, the latter having a hand in two of the tries in the Exiles' last visit to NW4. This campaign began with a 20-15 loss to Harlequins in the London Double Header, as Geraghty got all of the points, and he claimed ten more in a 20-18 win at Newcastle Falcons, the tries coming from Fergus Mulchrone and Andrew Fenby, both initiated by good play at scrum half by Steele and then O'Leary. That preceded the defeat to Saracens, but the stand-out result of the season so far came at Welford Road as they won 22-19 at the home of Leicester, as Geraghty got five more penalties, including a decisive one with two minutes left. Tighthead prop Halani Aulika finished off a rolling maul for the visitors' only try, whilst they narrowly lost out, 19-12, in their next home game against Northampton Saints. Their trip to Exeter Chiefs saw them well beaten 44-24, three late tries adding some respectability for the visitors. Switching to the European Rugby Challenge Cup, Italian side Rovigo were seen off 70-14 as Irish's modified side scored ten tries, including an Ojo hat trick, backing this up with another bonus point win, 25-15 in Grenoble, and then in the LV= Cup, the Exiles were edged out 17-16 at home to Leicester Tigers before losing out 43-22 at Wasps. Back into the Premiership, and the trip to Sale Sharks saw the forwards comprehensively overpowered in a 36-8 loss, but regained some pride in a 33-23 home loss to Bath, registering tries from David Paice and former Sarrie James Short. in a match which, unsurprisingly, saw the visitors dominant in the scrum and forwards. They would have been more disappointed to have lost 21-9 at home to Gloucester in a match they would have had more confidence in winning, but failed to make any real impact in attack. Switching to the third and fourth helpings of European rugby, Irish lost 24-14 at Cardiff Blues despite an early 7-0 lead but beat the Welsh side 34-23 in Reading, thanks to an influential performance from Geraghty. Irish were the first opponents for Waaps in Coventry, where they scored the first try through Geoff Cross, but a mounting penalty count contributed to a 48-16 defeat in which Goode scored eight penalties. A first home Premiership win of the campaign finally came on Boxing Day as London Welsh were defeated 24-9 by tries from Lewington, Cross and Tom Court,

 

The starting line up for that success featured Tom Homer at full back, with Topsy Ojo and Alex Lewington on the wings, and a centre pairing of Fergus Mulchrone and Shane Geraghty. Chris Noakes and Scott Steele were the 10-9 combination. In the forwards, former Ulster loosehead Tom Court, club stalwart hooker David Paice and Scottish international tighthead Geoff Cross formed the front row, whilst captain George Skivington and Nic Rouse, a former colleague of Tim Streather at Nottingham, combined in the second row, and the back row consisted of Scottish internationals Blair Cowan and Kieran Low with Canadian number 8 Jebb Sinclair. Given the problems posed by Irish in recent meetings, Saracens will probably opt for a strong line-up, so changes from the victorious Newcastle line up could be restricted to David Strettle, Richard Wigglesworth and Jackson Wray being rotated back into the starting line up at the expense of Chris Wyles, Neil de Kock and Ernst Joubert. Given how results have gone for Irish lately, if Saracens establish any sort of dominance in the forwards, they should have enough to win, but will need to be aware of their opponents' kicking game, and the reliability of Homer and Geraghty from the tee.

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