Irish spirit never fades.....

It’s rare for me to not know where to start a match report, but this fixture has left me with a sleepless Saturday night!! And not for the usual reasons!

Waking in a sweat throughout the night as I see.........
More on that later!

Having recovered from last week’s away win against a good Qunis side, it was pleasing to see us return to a home fixture and to yet another side rich in talent in London Irish Vets. So to have this fixture fully confirmed by Friday was reassuring. Better still the rest of the Club was rested which meant a number of players from the senior end of the Club would surly relish a run out with the Vets and if that didn’t happen we would at least have lots of supporters and if that didn’t occur we would at least be able to play on the 1st XV pitch and relive memories of days gone by!

Of course come Saturday it was only Richie Mayson, Lee Bodman who fancied a run out and though we did have a few supporters, including our Global Jet setting Club Chairman, the hallo 1st XV pitch was strictly not for us to play on!
The weather has been kind to us this season so we have only required deep heat to help us keep warm and not those lovely little hand warmer gadgets you can slip in your pocket. So with no rain, sleet or snow we were good to go.
Usual Saturday preparations prevailed including giving Skips two balls a bloody good scrub, though Ken had kindly provided us with a new ‘match’ ball on the proviso we didn’t get it muddy, marked, scuffed or worn down in any way!
London Irish arrived in good time and as a squad of 21 we were keen to get on with proceedings. The ref was keen too, so much so he had decided to wear his good luck socks.....a mustard faded pair passed down from his Great Grandfather!

The kick off .....
Hang on copy/paste....as previously promised........
Barnes secured the restart and recycled 3 times before they were turned over. Almost immediately Cranleighans were penalised for holding on and the kick took the visitors to their line-out just outside the opposition 22. From this they kept ball tight and advanced a few metres before the defence forced an error to get a put-in. Cranleighans cleared to touch, still well in their half. OC's soon forced another error and from the last scrum of the 30 minute half just got into the other half before an error at the whistle. Almost all of this had been played in Cranleighans' half. We received and OC’s attacked hard, we defended, Quins came back at us, Esher wound us up and Guildford have wound me up!!!!......

Ok, so Irish did kick off and we did receive and run the ball back at them and that’s all I can remember of the main detail, partly because last night’s nightmares have erased much of what happened! What I do recall is this....
Irish were very effective at the ruck and recycled the ball well, often sending the ball wide and putting us on the back foot, though in the main we defended well, despite a few lapses in judgment which let them in. At the scrum we dominated despite a deceptive Irish front row which did know how to scrummage and especially play the ref very well! Of course the Lineout’s, which have now become a key part to our game, functioned well with some great ball off Sean and fantastic steals from Nicky B.
Yet despite being arguably the stronger side we were lethargic and it felt like huge phases of the game were spent with us watching Irish run the ball at us.

Sheds, now regretting Friday night works drinks which had ended only hours earlier, went off injured so we re-organised the front row and managed to win a few balls against the head which served us well, But alas!!!!
We wanted to make life harder for ourselves!!!

And the nightmares I have had involved some stunning knock on’s which would have been at least two more tries and then the try which was not to be; namely a pass to Mark under the posts and a, (boot lace) pass to Sean metres from the post!
I am reliably informed that the new King Salman bin Abdulaziz will continue to bring reforms to his Kingdom and that he has a love for rugby! However, he has little tolerance for players who run in over the try line and refuse to put the ball down in the traditional manner yet run beyond the dead ball line heading towards the showers. The new King has suggested that some form of flogging, (controversial I know!) would be fitting for such a heinous crime! Morgs if you ever run freely past the try line and forget to place the ball down, I will reinstate ‘Vets Bitch’ and make you take her out on the Tube and propose to her at Twickenham before a Welsh International!!!!

Anyway by the time Morgs had started to head for the showers it was indeed time to call it a day and we yet again we achieved a good win, but with greater lessons in how to cut out our mistakes becoming critical!
Irish were great sports and enjoyed the unique Barnes hospitality as provided by the wonderful Zoe and her girls – thanks Zoe.

The side which played was:

Forwards: Skips, Marty, Sheds, Beans, Gibbo, Brucie, Paul Ficker, JC, Deno, Nick B.
Backs: Gus, Frodo, Marek, A’fer, Morgs, Martin Glanville, Curran, Nick H, Slatts, Lee Bodman, Paul Fricker

Tries: Gibbo, Si Curran, Deano, Marek, Nick H, Martin (I am now an official Vet Glanvile) and Morgs...well the one he did put down!

Cons Marek x 4 Martin x 1

Next week we rest and instead enjoy the annual Vets lunch!!!

Skips/Finch 25.01.15