By BrianC
May 28 2006

November starts with a bang. Not only do we beat Bath at the Madejski, we do so in style. The detail is spelt out clearly in Cormac’s match report.

Some Mistake, Surely? tells the story of a memorable 36 – 13 win. A game in which we pick up our second try bonus point of the season. This is the largest margin of victory we have had in the premiership for three years.

It goes without saying that people are cock-a-hoop. Bisach posts a detailed Some Thoughts on the Match thread. "First things first, my club, London Irish, beat Bath. Says it all." "Forwards - To a man they stood up to be counted. My lasting impressions of their performance will be never stepping back in defence and particularly a vision of Nick forever jumping to win the ball at a Bath line-out." "Management - All I can say is that the management continue to impress me with their relationship with the paying support. Ever willing to offer help and asking for help and ideas too."

The Bath game also saw the introduction of an on-field compere. This was warmly received. Blarney admitted that he had grave doubts about the idea but then went on to say "What a pleasant surprise! He refrained from any inanity and, during the Sumo wrestling was quite amusing and witty! Also, the pre and post match interviews are a great idea."

In a BBC interview by Graham McKechnie before the start of the month Brian Smith said his target was to pick up ten points from our four GP games. After the game he is interviewed again. He’s upped the target to fifteen.

The Autumn Internationals are now in full swing. As is usually the case when these are on the schedules vary from the norm. Our second game of the month is at Newcastle. As it is on a Friday night the travelling support was minimal. Small though the travelling numbers were, they made themselves heard in no uncertain terms as we beat the Falcons 20 – 23.

Ritchfitz penned our match report The Best Side Lose Again. "The game was stop/start but for me Irish played the better Rugby and deserved their win. We should have out the game out of reach but a combination of good field kicking by Newcastle and silly knock-ons by Irish nearly let Newcastle sneak a point."

This win puts us fifth in the table. Amid all the joy there is an element of concern that we may find ourselves getting carried away. As the season progresses and our injuries mount will this be yet another false dawn?

Our next fixture is at home to Gloucester. Unusually for us all the pundits and the bookmakers have us down as favourites for the game beforehand. This was, as it turned out, justified. We ran out comfortable 25-10 winners in a dogged match. StevieJ’s match report Glaws Get Their Pocket Nick-ed tells the tale "It wasn’t pretty, but we have a new found ability this season to adapt our game to take away our opponents Plan ‘A’, and it is working marvellously."

This third victory in a row moves us up to third in the table. A position we have not been in for almost two years. People are happy. The site has a new record number of hits for a single day on the Monday after the game. In amongst all the happiness there is frustration that the rugby press are not taking us seriously. Other teams are losing rather than us winning, Reading Glasses highlights one of many such examples in a thread entitled Last Again.

Our last match of the month is one that we normally regard as one of the toughest in the season, away at Leicester. There is a curious mood on the site in the run up to this. It is almost as if people are daring to believe we could win it but then catching themselves on.

Such confidence proved to be misplaced however as we were well beaten 35 – 3. Reading Fatboy’s match report A Night of Mayhem highlights what a frustrating game it was. "London Irish are having the roller coaster season which the new coach Brian Smith predicted. He told us we could expect some good performances and some dire ones. On Friday night at Leicester, the few Irish supporters in attendance experienced that horrible feeling you get in your stomach as the rollercoaster suddenly pitches you earthwards at a high speed. And yet it all started so well."

In a very detailed analysis of the game Steve Smith laid out some uncomfortable home truths. "Certainly one of the most disappointing LI games I've ever been to. The scoreline was ludicrous as a reflection of the game and every Tigers fan you spoke to said the same afterwards. Yet, in my view, it was still unacceptable. We have a much stronger squad now and we should not be that below par against a Tigers team with so many missing players."

This loss drops us to sixth in the table as we head into December. A position we will be in for at least four weeks as we have European and Powergen games this side of Christmas.

December starts with a game that is pretty meaningless to most of us. We play Cardiff at the Madejski in the Powergen Cup, a competition we have already been eliminated from. Big Papi’s match report Irish Young Guns Win the Day tells the story of our narrow 27 – 23 victory. He concludes "All in all then a good afternoon’s entertainment and if the result meant nothing at least it beat the hell out of Christmas shopping at The Oracle."

The board was hardly set alight with discussion over this game. In a thread entitled Good performance but…. Blarney does however express some concerns, most notably worries about our second half performance. "Yet again we seem to fall completely off the pace in the 2nd half, scoring only 6 points to Cardiff's 10. We let them right back in it after the break when we should have powered away."

News breaks the following week that Scott Staniforth is to go home for family reasons. Warm thanks and understanding are expressed in a thread discussing this. Scott himself pops in to say goodbye.

Or next two games are in the ECC, back to back against Agen. The first match is at the Madejski. Here we run out 29 – 21 victors, picking up a try BP in the process. Some concerns are however aired, not least in Griff’s match report French Revolution, "So, final score 29 - 21 and Irish well deserved both the victory and the try BP but you came away feeling that, yet again, they had let an opportunity go. 29 - 7 would have been a fantastic first-leg score to defend, 29 - 21 less so."

Jonny_C picks up on a somewhat downbeat mood and remonstrates with those on the board in a thread entitled Cheer up, Irish won! "After witnessing a fantastic 4 TRY victory over a strong Agen side this Sunday I was surprised at the reaction from many London Irish supporters."

All such concerns were quickly put to bed the following week. Clarlovian describes how the team faced a brutal game in France and emerged as The Lions of Agen securing a 24 – 32 victory courtesy of a fantastic injury time try by Paul Franze. "On Saturday in the town of Agen at the Stade Armandie, on a damp but otherwise pleasant evening (weather-wise), along with 100+ travelling supporters, I witnessed a London Irish squad demonstrating in no uncertain manner that they have reached a new level of maturity, confidence and competence."

On the messageboard SteveS waxes lyrical about Paul’s try, "No superlatives are too high for Franze's amazing try. I reckon very few people in the stadium, either Agen or LI fans, saw it coming, just Paul himself! He just did it all by himself, seemingly beating half the Agen team on his own with even his own team-mates too far back or too amazed to give him meaningful support." There is also much discussion of, and praise for, Graham McKechnie’s commentary.

Christmas comes and goes and on the 27^th December we travel to Watford to take on Saracens in the Premiership. My co-ed Griff produces what must be our briefest match report of the season. One Over Sarries that tells the story of our thrilling last minute 19 – 20 victory. "To my mind it would have been harsh for us to lose so the result is a good one but you have to wonder about yet another match where we went ahead and then let them come back at us."

Despite the win and the general air of optimism that prevails, not least because this win moves us up to third in the table, there are concerns expressed about the poor standard of refereeing and the booing of Barry’s final long range penalty kick. AFF puts it thus, "Referees at junior rugby level are a separate topic, but in the Premiership, I believe that if they have a bad day at the office, it's fair enough to say so in courteous language, of course. The guy had a shocker yesterday."

There is little time to rest before our next and final game of the season against Wasps. A massive crowd of 18,122 turn up at the Madejski, unfortunately they see us go down 19 – 35 to a very impressive Wasps side. In his match report A Game of Two Teams RT wonders how the game would have panned out had we started with a full strength side. "What would the game have been like from the start if LI had managed to push Wasps back as they did from the 50 min mark onwards?"

Despite the defeat people are not too downhearted. Old Armachian puts it well. "Today we saw how to play our game even better than we have been playing it, particularly how to execute a rush defence and not be penalised by over-eager Refs for it. The Wasps pack were doing what ours have been doing well but today did it just that bit better. I find it hard to fault how we played today - Wasps were simply better - although I thought we were nervous at the start and took a time to get comfortable with the game."

We end the year in 5^th place in the GP. The title as this stage seems to be between Sale and Wasps with an outside chance to our next opponents, Leicester.

All such