By MickeyMouse
May 23 2016

  The London Irish 15/16 season started in unusual fashion. The retirement of Andy Goode, months after signing up to Irish for one final season in the Premiership, was unfortunately timed. His was an exciting signing as the former England Fly-Half had been there, seen it, done it, worn the t-shirt and won the trophy. At Fly-Half, Irish still had Noakes available along with Geraghty and we did have Brophy-Clewes in the academy. However this loss came near the beginning of the season and this blow seemed a hard one to take, as there were no replacements available on the market. However, if you're broke, you're broke - best to take the advice given and retire.  

The Premiership had decided to ditch the unpopular LV= Cup and delay the start until the group stages of the Rugby World Cup were complete. This also assisted Exeter and Gloucester who had their home grounds used in the Pool Stages of the World Cup and also ensured most clubs would have a large returning contingent of their RWC2015 stars, even if they did need to be rested.

However, this meant Irish's annual pre-season friendly with Muster was an odd fixture. The Pro12 decided to retain their usual September start, so the fixture on Friday 28th August at Irish Independent Park in Cork would be Irish's first pre-season friendly, with their next fixture nearly a month later at 25th September. Munster, however, would be well warmed up by now with this being their final friendly before the Pro12 started the week after. The difference in class and preparation was evident at the match as Irish made a number of careless errors, which would end up being a theme of the season, but this being the first workout for many players, the 21-15 loss was easily written off as a warm-up. Irish fielded a number of youngsters. There wasn't much to comment on this match, mainly because your match reporter was me - and I was already drunk before kick off.

Our next pre-season friendly was the Cunningham Duncombe Series, two matches played at the Stoop over consecutive Fridays, with one being our "home" match. This match saw us wear our away strip and was a lively affair with lots of attacking intent from both sides. A number of mistakes crept in that meant we weren't as clinical as we'd like. However a brace of tries from Alex Lewington and a couple of good moves from Christian Lewis-Pratt showed Irish still had the attacking intent of old. Luke Narraway also scored against his former team with another relatively new weapon in Irish's arsenal - the rolling maul! Irish's lack of finishing meant the result was another loss at 22-17. Still though, the signs were promising for a cracking season.

Our final pre-season friendly saw as at home at the Stoop. Six changes were made from the week before and Irish started much the brighter, Chris Noakes delivering a cross field kick into the waiting arms of Topsy Ojo who started the scoring for the day. There were 8 tries scored in what the match reports claim was an entertaining day, although Quins quickly racked up the points, Irish went from 8-32 down shortly after the start of the 2nd half to outscore Quins to finish 29-37. Harlequins winning the inaugural Cunningham Duncombe series and the end of Irish's pre-season. There were many positives here, Irish had been quite successful with the rolling maul, something I've not seen in a number of seasons. The backs in particular were very lively in the hard pitches of the time, but too frequently silly handling errors cost us points. But we'll be able to cover this off in training. Lewis-Pratt had had a good pre-season as well it should be noted indicating good things to come from the academy. This was going to be a long season despite the late start!

Unfortunately, the scheduling gods hadn't been very kind to Irish, starting Leicester, Exeter, Saracens and Bath as our first four games. Teams that finished 2nd - 5th the previous season with Saracens being crowned Champions in spite of finishing 4th in the season, this was not to be a fun start for Irish! Still, the cliché is that there are no easy games in the Premiership, there were enough positives in pre-season to expect some points out of the first batch of games.

Leicester was our first game, and with a batch of Internationals returned from RWC action, whilst the date was 18th October, the pitch was still hard as we were experiencing something of an Indian Summer with temperatures being above average. Our first 10 minutes we not great, with an interception try from half-way followed almost immediately by Topsy Ojo being sin binned for a high tackle after the restart left us 10-0 down and a man down to boot. However, Irish unleashed its rolling maul and we were able to claw some points back through a couple of tries and Noakes having a good day off the tee. Unfortunately, future Irish signing Tommy Bell was having an even better day off the tee and Irish just couldn't stop infringing. A 16-28 result seemed to flatter Leicester who scored more through Irish infringements than they did through positive play, a losing bonus point would have been a fair result. Irish were looking promising, but this wasn't a game Irish were expecting to win.

Next up, Exeter. This team has come on strong since promotion from the Championship finishing higher every season. With them finishing 5th on equal points with 3rd the season before, this campaign Exeter would be chasing a top 4 finish. And, well, they looked to be doing just that. Irish had Sean Maitland and Aseli Tokoiratuma as debutants for the game. The match report on the Offie starts by saying there were many positives in the match, yet only really points out a rolling maul and these two debutants being sprightly. I went to this away fixture last season and rather regretted it after being put the sword so I decided not to go to this one, a decision I'm still glad about!

Saracens were the third team for Irish to take on, at Allianz Park. Whilst it's a rather soulless place to go, it is a home and one that will do Sarries well for the future, the facilities there are very good, but with the athletics track there you are quite removed from the action. This match started extremely well, in part because Farrell had left his kicking boots in the locker, and in part as Irish once again unleashed the Rolling Maul, quickly becoming an important weapon in the Irish armoury. One such move had a 30 meter rolling maul end with McKibbin passing onto a rushing Tikoiratuma, who took two men with him over the line to score a powerful try. A promising half and we did score again in the second half with another rolling maul, this time with replacement Halavatau the man to benefit. Unfortunately, Farrell found his kicking boots in the second half coupled with a sin binning of Tikoratuma for a high tackle and other Irish infringements cost us. Irish outscored Saracen's two tries to one that day, but we came away pointless as Saracens won 14-24.

So, three games in and no points scored. However, these were all big teams we had played and we had a new coach betting in. There was plenty of promise however, Tikoiratuma, McKibbin and Maitland looking promising signings for Irish in the backs. In the forwards, our rolling maul was looking formidable having kept us in both the Leicester and Saracen's games. This was going to be a long season, and there was a lot to play for.