By BrianC
May 15 2005

The second part of our review of the season covers November and December. We are winning some key games, losing others. There are some worrying signs.

November started with what many of us regarded as a potential banana skin in the shape of a home fixture against newly promoted Worcester Warriors. It turned out to be a reasonably comfortable 25 – 15 victory. In his match review DrVHC particularly singled out Tofty for praise “Phenomenal would be the best description. Absolutely phenomenal!”.

The mood on the site is a mixture of relief and joy. After a long stretch of home defeats it is nice to again start seeing home victories. GMC_LI expresses this clearly in a thread entitled Ramparts RESTORED “Today there was a definite atmosphere, from both within the playing team and supporting crowd, that " this is our home " . It was palpable.”

Our one caveat at this stage is that we simply don’t know how good this Worcester team is. They have beaten Quins and run others close but are still very much favorites to be in last place come the end of the season.

Our next match was away at Northampton. Prior to the game this was regarded as a crunch game by both sets of supporters. In my match preview I outlined the difficulties Saints were facing. “By their own high standards of recent years The Saints are having a poor season. They won their first two games of the season, at home to Bath and away at Quins but have since had a run of six defeats. They now find themselves, almost incredibly, down at 10th place in the table with thirteen points.”

This was a nail biting game which we managed to win 20 – 21. The title of OxonRob’s match report Saints 20 – Tofty 21 sums up just how significant a contribution Tofty made. “I have to use the only title that is appropriate. It was Tofty’s day – again. He scored all our points – again.” What the headline score doesn’t reflect is that we were 6 – 16 up at half time. In the second half Saints came back at us hard, only awesome defense saved the day for us.

This defeat saw Saints endure their longest losing streak of the professional era. After a further defeat by Worcester the following week their coach Alan Solomons was sacked. People are very happy on the site. Loobs posted the following Monday “Just up and it still feels good this morning, What a great result.”

Our next game was at home against Newcastle. Here we recorded yet another victory 21 – 15. It was yet another nail biting game, we only secured victory with a pushover try deep into injury time. In her match report Little Eskimo describes the moment “The pack thunders on and Hodgson finishes it off, to the delight of the crowd. “

After this victory we are now 5^th in the table. Again everyone on the site is very happy with the team if not the media. There is a general feeling abroad that we are not getting the credit we deserve. In a thread entitled Battle of the Back Lines Griff puts it succinctly, “We play a team with a terrifying set of backs and either a) They fail to play well or b) We STOP them playing well. As this has happened a lot now it would be a huge coincidence if every team we played had a bad day. I'm inclined to go with b). Our defence has been pretty special all season (and is getting better). It may not be champagne rugby to watch but it is the reason we're now in the top half of the table.”

Injuries, particularly in the front row, are now becoming an issue. We approach the last game of November, away at Bath, with further bad news. Beefie is now out for some time with a broken hand. Given how massive he has been in earlier games this is a cause for some concern.

In the run up to the Bath game much was made of Mike Catt’s return to the Rec., his first game back there. In the event he had a pretty lackluster game as we went down 27 – 15. In Griff’s match report he says, “Catt's initial input was tentative and perhaps gave a hint of the turmoil Mike was experiencing”.

Whilst people are disappointed on the site there are positives that can be taken. In a long and thoughtful post JoeV outlines where we stand. Rather worryingly he also states “I think some of the players looked tired - at this stage of the season you have to wonder why?”

News has broken that Leicester are planning to move from their long term home Welford Road and enter a ground sharing agreement with Leicester City FC at the Walker stadium. This causes much angst amongst the Leicester faithful. I can only see the logic behind the decision. If all goes to plan, next season they will be playing in front of average crowds in excess of 20k and they are giving themselves long term room to grow. We are now at the half way stage of this season I calculate that total ZP crowds, with the boost given by the London Double Header and the arrival of Worcester, are 26% up on last.

December arrives. In the run up to Christmas we take a break from the ZP as we play cup games. The month starts with the Craic on tour to Pau. Here we lost 25 – 19 but as Reading Fatboy put it in his match report “A game which we lost, but only by six points.” We faced the return fixture at the Madejski with every hope of making up this deficit.

Match aside the tour was enjoyed by everyone. Donaghadee, on his first tour for some time, penned the Craic Report for us. “We felt quite proud of drinking the restaurant out of Rose wine but felt deflated when we were told that it was only the less expensive one.”

Hopes were high for the return fixture at the Madejski but it was not to be. We win the game 19 – 16 but are now out of the competition. The title of RitchFitz’s match report The London Irish Naivety Play says it all. “Christmas comes but once a year and if I were Pau I wouldn’t expect anything else this year. The gift they received from Irish today was a relatively trouble free passage through to the next round of the European Challenge Cup.”

We are only getting to the stage where we are consoling ourselves that exit from the ECC may be a blessing in disguise when we are hit with another bombshell. Conor is on his way to pastures new revealed to us that our Director of Rugby was on his way to a top job at the RFU in the Spring. Elsewhere Saracens boss Rod Kafir resigned.

Our last game before Christmas was in the Powergen cup, away at Worcester. When this was drawn most of us knew this would not be an easy tie. So it turned out to be as we scraped a 7 – 9 victory. The game was not of the highest quality. Mrs Goz in her match report says at the start of the second half, “Now I have to confess that at around this point, I stopped taking notes. There was absolutely nothing going on save for a repeat of the stagnant period of the first half. We’d win the ball, we’d throw it around a bit and we’d lose it.” Quality of the match aside it appears that everyone enjoyed the day.

Our first game post-Christmas has now developed into a major event. Whilst not quite matching last season’s crowd a very healthy 17.4k gate turned up at the Madejski on the 27^th December. Unfortunately for us they witnessed LI losing 21 – 22 thanks to a Shane Drahm drop goal deep into injury time. RichardNP in his match report described it as a “strange, slightly turgid match”. What upset people most about the game is the fact that it appeared to be in the bag, as Richard put it “61 minutes: 18-10 to Irish. Less than 20 minutes to go and we seemed to be in total control”.

On the site people are not happy, even normally mild OxonRob expresses criticism on a thread entitled Back to Basics, “We can't expect to win matches until and unless we can score tries. We won't score tries until our pack offers secure possession on our own throws and put-ins. “

We end the year 6^th in the ZP, through to the quarter final of the Powergen Cup and out of the ECC. Some are talking about HC qualification, others about a relegation dogfight. At this stage I can’t help thinking it will be somewhere between the two.