By SteveS
June 17 2021

I come to praise London Irish, not to bury them. So feel free to read something else if you your glass half-full contains red-blood spleen after Saturday’s remarkable encounter. The game of two halves cliche has been grabbed by everyone so maybe I can call it the Marmite match, you either love rugby like this, the endless dazzling entertainment, or you hate it, the missed tackles, the questionable decisions, you name it. Stephen Jones in the Sunday Times called it “the greatest Premiership match ever played”, of course he is a rugby journalist who never knowingly under-bombasts but on this one at least I know where he is coming from.

I took three neutrals from my workplace who have all had a variety of rugby experiences, junior club rugbyman, Springbok fan, football supporter, but they were all united afterwards in declaring they watched an incredible sporting event. Make no mistake, it’s rugby like this that will keep all these different kinds of fans returning and begin filling our wonderful new stadium to the brim. It was a day not to be anywhere else but Kew, even if the BT Sport viewers at home had the added entertainment of our old nemesis Austin Healey forecasting just before the whistle that the game would be a tight, attritional kicking encounter such was the European rugby prize at stake.

Both our big lad centres with silky skills Hepetema and Rona were prominent in the opening blitzkrieg as was the long-awaited bosh pairing of our Aussie locks Coleman and Simmons. Rona was driven over with forwards on his back for our first try and almost straight away some dazzling offloads, with Tuisue’s the most dexterous, sent Hassell-Collins streaking down the left wing for our second and we were 12-0 ahead after a mere 6 mins. The third wasn’t long in coming as a remorseless series of pick and drives featuring Groom keeping the Wasps back-rowers honest was ended with a dazzling flick pass by Hepetema to Rona sending him over for his second try.

A series of poor scrums was the only cloud on the horizon, prompting a tactical change after 25 mins with tighthead Hoskins replaced by Chawatama. London Irish also created the next try that was alas scored on the intercept by Wasps winger Bassett after a blind pass by Coleman. While we have seen such intercepts a little too often this season, they can rightly be considered a growing pain of a side learning to perfect the kind of breathless 15-man style that has drawn such applause from neutrals of late. Hepetema received a yellow card in the build-up to the try that many commentators believed to be red but ref Tom Foley adjudged the contact on Wasps’ Tom Willis to not be of such sufficient force/high danger. Perhaps I’m in a minority on this but I thought this was a commonsense decision, albeit one not followed for much of the season by officialdom - I dare say perhaps it will take the Lions series being decided by such an incident for some degree of pragmatism to return for everyone? Healey on commentary wanted Willis sent to Emergency Ward 10 but time would eventually show just how affected he was by the blow.

At 19-10, the Albert Tuisue show then took over for the rest of the half to quickly remove any stalled momentum. It was his midfield break that eventually led to a series of pick and drives near the Wasps goalline, finally finished off a short range by the No 8. Then some flimsy tackling by Wasps at a 5-yard scrum allowed Tuisue to barge over for his second and Irish’s fifth try, which seemed to many of us a sure sign that the white flag was being raised by the visitors. The half-time lead was confirmed at 33-10.

Now we can all have a guess at what was said at half-time in the respective dressing rooms so I’ll leave that to you. But it’s important to remember that Irish did re-start very much on the front foot again, a great turnover by Rogerson and then a sensible attempt by the box-kicking Groom to play the game deep in Wasps territory, good game management right? With Hepetema a minute or two left in the sinbin? Well alas our old boy Watson minor had other ideas with the break of the game from his own 22. He could even afford to mess up an overlap he created, but was rescued by a fine long pass by Robson that put Willis in for the first of his tries in the corner. It was probably the next try within minutes that really thrust the knife into our hearts because it properly brought Wasps back into the contest when hope had seemed lost. And again you can only praise the offense, great offload by Toomaga-Allen, a clever angled run and pass by Umaga and then Marcus Watson finishing. Suddenly the game was back to a two-score margin with nearly all the half to go, 33-20.

No surprise then our management quickly opted for fresh legs with Creevy and Cowan off for Matu’u and O’Brien, although these were two fine players to do without. Another critical loss occurred on 55 mins when the influential Coleman was sent to the bin for impeding a short tap. Wasps were able to maul the denuded Irish pack over the line to give Willis his second try, although a Jackson penalty shortly after gave some respite. A slightly longer penalty kick that might have steadied things further alas bounced back off the upright. Wasps struck again just before Coleman’s yellow elapsed as a turnover on half way was seized upon and another extravagant Robson pass sent Bassett down the left wing and through some increasingly tired Irish tackling for his second try. So we had a 4-point game with still nearly 15 mins to go. Irish turned down a kickable goal with 10 to go for the ambition of a momentum-shifting try, and it would be very Monday morning quarterbacking (OK later in the week as I write this) to declare this poor game management, we needed to counter the tide against us. Alas refreshed openside sub Vailunu came up with the crucial steal on the Wasps try-line just as were about to make such a game-turning statement. Fine margins indeed.

A supposed high tackle on Groom after one of our rare second-half breaks was correctly called legal. Then a stunning touch kick from halfway to our 5-yard line by Umaga with a minute to go left most of us I’m sure with that sinking feeling of what would come. Another potentially high tackle hit, this time on Rogerson, was again correctly called legal. Watson appeared to have clinched the game with a slide into the corner but a fine tackle by Parton gave us a reprieve with a 50-50 TMO call that could have gone either way but went in our favour. Sadly the penalty advantage meant the siege was incessant and even when Willis completed his hat-trick, the ref was playing yet more advantage so our agony could have even been extended beyond the 86 min mark.

Watching the game live, I felt we had been beaten by brilliant rugby rather than a catalogue of our failures. I feel this even more so having watched it back. You can complain that you have to be a poor side to surrender a 33-10 half-time advantage but that doesn’t really compute when we did something similar to the team now atop the league when they led 31-13 at half-time back in February. And so we go to the very same Bristol next to see if there will be an unlikely European Champions Cup redemption for us. No denying the lads have come on in leaps and bounds this season, so much progress in teambuilding, and they currently remind me of the great entertainers of 1998-99, our final year at Sunbury, who slipped out of the European places in the final weekend. Plenty of grounds for optimism that we won’t be the nearly men next season.