By LI Bohemian
April 14 2021

The signs, were not good, my doubts started on Thursday, on the bus ride home, I checked the roll call for Irish, no Rona and with Will Goodrick-Clarke on a ban the team was slightly weaker, a glance at the Bath team and it was slightly different, Bath had what seemed to me a stronger squad, particularly in the forward pack, their squad size seems bottomless in the forwards even when you consider they had two bans in the game against Irish in the premiership.

I’ve only visited The Rec on one occasion, when the unfancied Irish won a Sevens finals contest a while back, the thing I remember most from my visit was mud, mud everywhere, Irish have never really fared well at the ground, in the fifteen-a-side format.

Just before kick off, my mood turned even gloomier when a good friend and Scarlets fan, messaged me to say, he was supporting Irish tonight and had put money on them to win, as he had done for Scarlets the week before, we all know how that turned out.

I should not be so down though, this Irish team is different, it has the seeds of belief in it, there is a good mix of young and experienced players who are developing into a team with a tangible game plan, but not only that, a back bone.

With all that in mind, I tuned in to BT sports 2 just in time for the two minutes silence to commemorate the passing of Prince Philip.

The game kicked off with Bath having the ball and working it well, towards the Irish try line. The Irish defence was patient, Bath’s possession was lost from a fair contest for the ball at a ruck by Creevy and in an instant Irish had a penalty that was kicked to the corner for a catch and drive, for the same Creevy to score a try. This was instantly reciprocated by Bath, leveling the scores. Irish had their go at getting another score back, all looked promising until a spilled ball. Bath quickly and cleverly moved the ball via some good carries from their back row and some poor tackling from Irish, enabled them to score their second try. Irish huffed and puffed but could not find any continuity, and were not allowed to settle into the contest due to some good Bath defence and countering, notably Mercer, Watson and Falatau.

When Bath bullied their way to a third try, I toyed with the thought of watching Gogglebox instead, but no, just before half time (and Gogglebox) Irish kicked a good penalty leaving a not-so-big nine points deficit.

The second half was a good arm wrestle between the sides where Irish were mostly the arm that was millimeters from the table top, but good defence kept them in the game. Enough to even return pressure on the Bath try line, this resulted with Jackson opting to kick a penalty.

With only one score in it, I was beginning to think that maybe Irish could unjustly pinch the match, now this thought would have never occurred to me in the previous six or seven seasons and that is good enough for me to declare the game a success for Irish, although Bath deservedly scored the next try and won the game.

My thoughts after were that for some of the more reliable players in recent matches it was a game too far and they sadly underperformed, this happens every now and then, but this season it hasn't been the norm, for me that is a massive difference.