Feb 07 Sale v London Irish

Twinkle, Twinkle little star


What do you get if you play a winger at full-back, a scrum half and centre on the wings, a lock at blindside and a hooker at openside? The answer …….. a dour, miserable and dreary spectacle. I wouldn’t say it was the worst game I’ve seen at Edgeley Park: that ‘honour’ goes to Sharks against Leicester on a miserable, wet February night in 2004, closely followed by the debacle against Newcastle earlier this season, but boy, it wasn’t good.

I left the ground feeling deflated and thoroughly depressed, thinking, is this really the best we can come up with? If the answer’s yes, then maybe Worcester Warriors needn’t panic as much as they have been.

With all due respect to London Irish, this was a game we should and could have won. This isn’t the Irish team of last year. Few who saw their demolition of Wasps at the tail end of last season would question what a lethal team they were. Yet, this year things haven’t gone according to plan. Their forwards are more than a match for most and their backline can still be devastating, but the two have rarely performed at the same time on the same day. It was ours for the taking, but for some reason it looked like we didn’t believe we could.

It started well enough and for the first fifteen minutes or so we looked lively. The front five were combative and aggressive and the set piece seemed to be functioning well. Lee Thomas tried to get the whole backline moving and did his best to keep the ball alive.

Mark Cueto looked fired up and was obviously prepared to run any ball that came his way back into the Exiles’ half. Foden and Mayor, despite playing out of position, looked pumped and tackled and ran the ball well. Two penalties to the good, and then for some inexplicable reason, everything ground to a halt.

London Irish set their stall out right from the start. It was a limited game plan, but given the absence of the influential and wily Mike Catt and the classy Argentinian centre, Gonzalo Tiesi, it was wholly understandable. They came to contain Sale and to spoil and disrupt play at each and every opportunity.

Bob Casey and Nick Kennedy, are two second rows who’ve been round the block more times than the local bobby. They know what they can get away with and when to do it. If there was an opportunity to slow the play down or disrupt it, then they did it. Fair play to them as well. If they were playing for us I’d applaud them.

But, sometimes you can take things too far. In all my time watching rugby, I can never remember as much time wasting. They went down like ninepins, often when under pressure and successfully killed off any momentum we managed to build. It would’ve been nice if the referee had penalised this blatant time-wasting, but, poor chap, it obviously wasn’t one of his better days.

When Sale came out early for the second half, the players looked like they’d received an earful and consequently, I thought we’d step up a gear and start to play as we all know we can. The half had barely started when a dreadful, though thankfully rare, pass from Corcho to Cuets resulted in a penalty and Irish extended their lead.

Was that the pivotal moment of the match, as some people have said? I’m not sure, but it was symptomatic of our overall performance – nervy, twitchy and seriously lacking in confidence. Corcho has been sublime this year and has often dragged us through when things haven’t gone well. It’s all too easy to rely on the few, but responsibility should be shared by everyone.

Sale couldn’t be faulted for lack of effort but that effort was all one-dimensional and the ball delivery was always far too slow. The Irish were there to defend and that’s precisely what they did to great effect. We just couldn’t find a way through and frankly, never looked likely to. We certainly weren’t helped by the referee, Mr Debney, who must have super-glued his left arm to his side at half time. He awarded penalty after penalty against us, but consistently failed to spot the Irish infringements. Maybe they were just that bit more subtle.

With ten minutes to go, Foden switched to scrum half, Wiggy to stand off and Stan came on as a winger, and what a difference it made. Suddenly we had pace and momentum. Quick ball from both the scrum and the ruck, and hey presto, you have a completely different game on your hands: the wonder is why we never started with that formation in the first half. It was a pity we couldn’t turn our possession into points during this period. Andy Sheridan powered over in the corner but the ball apparently was held up, according to the referee at least. In the dying minutes after consistent pressure, Sale had the Exiles pined in the corner with Chris Jones stood on his own on the opposite touchline screaming for the cross-field ball. No-one, except the crowd saw him.

Next up we play Sarries away. I can’t say I like the sound of that one. They’ve got over their injury woes and are starting to play aggressive and attacking rugby consistently. If we play with the starting formation of the Irish game, I fear we’re about to be on the wrong end of a hiding.

I realise you can only play with the players you have available, which in Sale’s case is basically anyone still standing, but we all witnessed in that ten minute cameo that players generally do play best in their preferred positions. Ask Andy Robinson, or maybe not, as he didn’t believe in it and it did for him. So, ask Brian Ashton instead. Give these lads a chance, especially the young ones. They are tomorrow’s stars, so let them shine and let’s see if one or two of them shine as brightly as their publicity suggests.