Leicester Tigers 22 - London Irish 15.

“Stand by – the gates are about to open” was the call for the staff at Welford Road as the turnstiles were opened this afternoon. Unfortunately, Tigers’ players also were ready for the London Irish team.

Some people may remember that at one point, the R43 family brought the “Lucky Grandma” along to Irish games, for whom the team always seemed to produce a win (the luck of the Irish did start to run out though and she hasn’t seen so many wins of late). We now seem to have brought along the “Unlucky Girlfriend”. This is no reflection on the young lady herself who offered not to come again after seeing Irish at Sale and Worcester as her only games before today but must be borne in mind when thinking about the result today, as she attended her third ever game.

When the game kicked off, it wasn’t long before Richard Thorpe became closely acquainted with his former team-mates and he got up from the pitch had to go to the Irish line-out from the penalty he had conceded at the same time for holding on. A further penalty came from the line-out and after three and a half minutes, Ian had put Irish ahead with a successful kick. The supporters around me suggested that Irish try to run the clock down from that point but I don’t think even Tigers could have held out that long. However, a few minutes later Tigers got turned over, Scott picked the ball up and it was passed to Shane, then Topsy and then, after a run down the wing, to Anthony, who scored in the corner. This made the score 0-8 (conversion was missed). The Unlucky Girlfriend had only seen one try by Irish before then and was keen to see some more but unfortunately could not see this one because it was down the far end from us!

Things were looking good at this point but however far through the game teams are at Welford Road. Tigers seem to bounce back. Indeed, Tigers made a good break down the wing but were called back for a forward pass. There was a bit of debate round us as some of the Tigers supporters thought the referee had missed a forward pass by Irish before that. So there was discussion of which might have been forward passes in the England-Australia game the previous day and it being all about the way the passer’s hands are going. The next scoring opportunity was again for Tigers about a quarter of the way through the game but George Ford put the penalty kick to the right of the posts.

Tigers had a line out close to us and didn’t seem to be in a hurry and the referee smiled when SamR43 shouts to him “Come on, we have three more tries to score!” Perhaps they should have taken a bit longer though, as Tigers started to pressure Irish’s try line, a clearance kick was charged down and Rob Andrew (not the one of England fame) scored under the posts from the resultant line out at about 5m out. This made the score 7-8 and Tigers then went in front with a penalty for an Irish infringement at the lineout. They could have been further ahead not long after with another penalty but George Ford did not get this one.

One of the R43 boys’ cousins who has not been to many games commented on how pleased he was to have spotted two knock-ons. SamR43 replied that this was more than the touch judge had noticed. The referee did however give us a penalty which was kicked to touch, although the point of note for some people seemed to be the split in Alex C’s shorts which necessitated a quick change on the way to the resultant lineout! Tigers, however, made their way back into Irish’s half and George Ford made the half-time score 13-8 as he successfully took a penalty against Irish (holding on).

At half-time, I asked the Irish support around me why they thought we were losing. I received a variety of helpful and less helpful responses – take your pick from: they scored points than us; they are better than us; we are giving away too many penalties; they are more clinical; we haven’t been outplayed but we are not kicking well in our own half; and I don’t know!

At half-time, the newly re-signed Tom was brought on for Topsy, with Anthony moving to the wing, and for his first piece of the action made a good clearance kick from the Irish try line to about half way. However, the ball stayed in Irish’s half and about eight minutes into the second half, Shane was sin-binned for a deliberate knock down of the ball. George Ford kicked the accompanying penalty and bought the score to 16-8. At this point, Kieran (who had replaced Bryn on the bench) came on for George. I thought it was a bit early for Leicester to nick our losing bonus point but it was gone for the time being, and in fact with quarter of the game to go, a scrum penalty put the losing bonus point further out of reach with the score being 19-8. Ian then missed a relatively simple penalty and Irish were still 11 down with about quarter of an hour to go and Cai was brought on for Leo. In previous games, getting behind like this has caused Irish to try too hard and end up going down to an even larger margin, however, this was not to be the case this time. The fact that Irish did not fall to this error again may have been assisted in part by a very harsh looking red card for Stankovich for a high tackle on a low down Darren as he made a break. Irish and Tigers supporters seemed to be in agreement over this decision, with only the referee from the views I heard, seeing it as worth more than a penalty.

Irish with the one man advantage applied some pressure and Tom went over in the corner (The ‘Unlucky Girlfriend got to her wish to see another Irish try after all). Ian, not put off by his earlier miss, converted this much more difficult kick, making the score 19-15 with about ten minutes to go. Irish were back in losing bonus point range. Max came on for Alex with about 4 minutes to go but Leicester then got a scrum penalty to make it 22-15. Irish continued to exert pressure and although couldn’t quite get the draw, did hold onto that losing bonus point.

At the end of the day, although obviously a win was what we wanted, that losing bonus point was enough to keep us level on points with Sarries in our pool and the win gave Tigers something to still play for against our rivals in their pool - only the LV cup could have a team beating us being good for us as well as bad. Also it was the first point the Unlucky Girlfriend has seen Irish get, so hopefully with her desire to see Irish win, her unluckiness is wearing off – but just to warn you, she is coming to the Big Game over Christmas!