Leinster 19 - 24 London Irish

Challenge to Barry?
By BrianC
August 22 2002

Close to a hundred of the Craic Team last night headed to Dr. Hickey Park at Greystones to watch two under strength (Due to International call ups) sides in this, the last of the pre-season warm-ups.

A more complete report will follow once our correspondent has recovered from his hangover and returned. This is based on various messages, phone calls and pieces picked up from the net.

In the early passages of play, Leinster were the more dominant, rattling up a nine point lead. Their use of tactical kicking seemed superior to ours. We seemed to be kicking for the corner then trying to drive the ball over. This went unrewarded until just before half time when Strudders managed to bundle the ball over. Barry missed the conversion, we went in at half time down by four points.

The second half performance was somewhat more satisfactory, we ran in three more tries courtesy of Applestrudel, Mike Worsley and James C**kle. against Leinster's one, which was scored as injury time approached. Worryingly  Love Rat left the field injured, we wait to see how serious that is. Barry did not have his kicking boots on, he was replaced mid way through the second half by Tofty. Our correspondent was impressed by Tofty's performance, he appears to bring a new dimension to the backs' game, something to keep an eye on in the weeks to come. Pieter Roussow apparently looked lacklustre on the wing, it seems like a heavy dose of the Doc's medicine is called for.

It is difficult to take any pointers to the new season from this game. Beating Leinster away is no mean feat, that said they were arguably more weakened by International commitments than we were.

The boys now have a couple of days off, golf today I believe, some are staying over the weekend, before returning for training on Monday. The business proper starts at the Madstad, Sunday 1st September 3p.m., against Bath. I, for one, can't wait.