Barry Puts Boot into Glaws
Barry Everitt, making his 100th premiership appearance, gave Gloucester Rugby a fecking good kicking. His haul of 20 points saw London Irish claim the spoils and propel them to the lofty heights of 3rd in the table.This was not an afternoon for champagne rugby, but an ugly win proves that the exiles are learning under the stewardship of Brian Smith, to churn out wins. This was the 3rd win on the bounce, and one that was made from the sheer brutality of the pack.
On a bitterly cold afternoon, 9,027 hardy souls were warmed to the core by the way the fatboys got about their task, winning ball in the loose and set piece to ensure maximum pressure was placed on their opposite numbers. Kennedy was prominent at the Glaws lineout, nicking ball for fun, ably partnered by the West Country target, Bob Casey. The back row was all over the field and making a real fecking nuisance of themselves.
Although possession was secured, the girls just couldn’t break the determined, if not rule bending, defence of the cherry and whites. With the increasing pressure from the pack and quality phase rugby being banged together from them, the Glaws front line took to constant infringement to slow ball down, thus preventing the use of the backs to impose the territory onto the scoreboard. Also, with LI old boy Boer injured and off the paddock after 15 minutes, Glaws had lost the impetuous normally gained from their back row. His leadership was missing from the visitors, and this was evident in their body language.
Ashley Rowden had no option but to ping the visitors on the numerous occasions where the pressure could have allowed try time to happen. This played into the Boot’s hands nicely and the first half gifted him the opportunity to display a flawless record and allow a good margin to build on the score line. Yellow cards must have been in the thought pattern of Rowden, who continues to impress with the whistle at this level. Eustace finally received the binning order in the second half for twatting an exile, leaving him 10 minutes to reflect on his stupidity while his 14 colleagues chased the game. Then Buxton received the same award for repeated offences in the contact area, giving him first bids on the team soap.
The quality of rugby being displayed was not of the highest level, with the game becoming disjointed by the stop/start activity that numerous penalties bring and also the volume of handling errors preventing the try line being breached.
Mercier was also having a shocker, a far cry from his mercurial display while with Pau at our place last season. He repeatedly kicked away hard fought ball back to Irish on the majority of occasions. The Glaws fans may have voiced their displeasure of Everitt, referencing him as boring, but at least he has frickin slinging passes to his lads.
The half time score of 15-3 just about summarised the game fairly, with the home side controlling all the play, but not quite getting behind the defensive line. The visitors’ attacks always petered away as the tackling of the girls was fecking awesome, lead by the skipper, Catt. The dangerous Garvey and Sinbad just couldn’t weave their magic at the business end of the park, and Fanolua just huffed and puffed without blowing any houses down.
The second half was just as patterned to the first 40, with Irish dictating the pace and direction of the game. They seemed to be controlling the match without making any suggestions in the attacking rugby that has been on display thus far this season. The pack seemed to be gathering strength and continued on their merry way in securing ball and recycling it. The warrior feckers were given fresh legs during this half with Coetzee, Rautenbach and Murphy given hard earned rests, being replaced by Skuse, Russell and Gustard. This indeed indicates the quality of the squad as the replacements come on and do a great job.
With the job seemingly comfortably done, Glaws clawed their way back into the game. The scrum half subby of dat fecker Richards came on and pressured Barry into a kicking blunder, charging the kick down before dotting down for the try. With Ludo adding the extras, the game seemed to be back on, with a mere 8 point margin.
Barry’s boot had a slight mis-firing thang going on after that charge down, missing a couple of relatively easy penalties to set the game dead in the eyes of all. Although closer, there just didn’t seem to be any nerves in the crowd as Glaws just didn’t seem dangerous to us.
Strudwick came on for the hugely impressive Casey and made some impact, gathering the pill from the base of a scrum and banging through for the try that ended the contest. It was just that the try came from the fatlads, as their efforts all day had been mightily impressive. Coetzee and Rautenbach along with the old fecker Hatley were having a party at scrum time. The obvious second row power partnership is class, as well as the battling back row lads. Roche has been huge for us over the last few games and given another option in the lineout, and Spud just gets better in contact, but Danaher had a game of dreams. He was absolutely everywhere. Just a pity that the Irish lad has made his bed in the English selectors semi-detached, as EOS could maybe had a sniff at this lad who is getting better with every game.
London Irish have now started to put the word out in this league, announcing to those doubter feckers that they will battle and can play a bit too. Catt has skippered from the front and is proving to be the right leader. If the girls had gotten involved yesterday, an inept Gloucester Rugby may have been awaking this morning after a mullering. As it is, 4 points on the table, total 13 from our last 3 games is more than any of the management could have wished for.
Tigers at Welfare Road await the exiles on Friday, for yet another test of this squad. Any sort of result will force the fecking press to wake up and smell the Irish coffee.
London Irish:
Flutey; Armitage, Penney, Catt (capt), Bishop; Everitt, Willis;
Hatley, Coetzee, Rautenbach; Casey, Kennedy; Roche, Danaher, Murphy.
Subs:
Skuse, Russell, Strudwick, Gustard, Hodgson, Mordt, Horak.
-- Master Scribe