[GHA]

7.45pm kick off tomorrow, live on BT Sport 1

[SixNineOne]

Watching the Saints v Ulster game last week it was clear that Saints had done their homework on Ulster’s driving maul from the 5 metre line, successfully sacking the ball catcher on several occasions. Hopefully we can come up with some clever, but effective, ways of countering this.

[Narbia]

A Friday night trip to Franklin’s Gardens is always a difficult task, but one that the squad are looking forward to.”
London Irish:
15 Tom Parton, 14 Ben Loader, 13 James Stokes, 12 Terrence Hepetema, 11 Ollie Hassell-Collins, 10 Paddy Jackson, 9 Nick Phipps, 1 Allan Dell, 2 Motu Matu’u, 3 Lovejoy Chawatama, 4 Chunya Munga, 5 Rob Simmons, 6 Ben Donnell, 7 Blair Cowan (c), 8 Albert Tuisue

Replacements:
16 Matt Cornish, 17 Harry Elrington, 18 Ollie Hoskins, 19 George Nott, 20 Matt Rogerson, 21 Ben Meehan, 22 Phil Cokanasiga, 23 Tom Homer

Screenshot_2021-04-15 Rugby Union Betting Odds Build your Accumulators with oddschecker.png (8.23 KiB) Viewed 5514 times

[Narbia]

Watching the Saints v Ulster game last week..

I watched the first half, but it looked to me as though as the ref was having none of the Saints antics in their 22. Several cards IIRC.

[GHA]

Them:

15 George Furbank
14 Ollie Sleightholme
13 Fraser Dingwall
12 Piers Francis
11 Tom Collins
10 Dan Biggar
9 Alex Mitchell

1 Nick Auterac
2 Mike Haywood
3 Paul Hill
4 David Ribbans
5 Alex Moon
6 Nick Isiekwe
7 Lewis Ludlam (capt)
8 Teimana Harrison

Replacements:
16 Sam Matavesi
17 Alex Waller
18 Ehren Painter
19 Alex Coles
20 Tom Wood
21 Tom James
22 Rory Hutchinson
23 Ahsee Tuala

[shimmieandshake]

Tough ask with the missing players, especially in the forwards. WGC, Creevy, Mafi, Coleman and SOB (with Rogerson benching) might be a few too many for us to cope with, not to mention Rona, but fingers crossed.

I thought Stokes did very well at 13, all things considered against Bath - our attacking shape remained good, especially - so I'm happy to see him get another run.

Fantastic to see Chunya start, and I'll be keeping an eye on Ben Donnell especially. His carrying has noticeably improved, but feels like he makes more rash errors now than he did when initially breaking into the team. Hoping for smarter play, alongside the increased carrying threat - still anticipating big things from him generally.

[M_W]

Yeah, this feels like a tough one given the team sheets.

Agree on Donnell, think he's a fantastic prospect, but he needs to listen to the ref on occasions. Has given away a few needless penalties that seemed to be triggered more by frustration than anything else.

[Stevie J]

It does rather feel like a number of senior players may have niggles and we are resting them. Mafi not so much, a picture on Instagram today had him riding around a buggy with crutches.

Given the run-in I reckon we would need 3 wins for top 6, if we can get some BPs. This one very much feels like a game where if we come home with a point it'll be a decent result. We have a great record at home, much less so away, so if we can pick up something and come back to Brentford and take some wins then fingers crossed we could be enjoying Heineken Cup rugby next season.

[M_W]

I had to laugh at Ugo on Comms on Friday night talking about us as definitely a top 6 team, possibly to 4.

Steady on mate. Top 6 is everything for me and a million miles off being assured. It's going to be really tough holding off Bath and Leicester. As you say Stevie, the one thing we do have going for us (other than the slight lead) is rock solid home form. Would love the win, but realistically, any kind of point(s) from tomorrow night would be useful.

[GC89]

Agree with everything on here, re. the line-up and the comments on Donnell.

Top 6 would be amazing. Would love to have some big European fixtures to look forwards to (especially if relegation is scrapped as wouldn't have to worry as much about risk of being distracted by Europe), but Leicester and Bath will get much better over the next few rounds and we feel a bit as if we are running out of steam...

[Stevie J]

Agree with everything on here, re. the line-up and the comments on Donnell.

Top 6 would be amazing. Would love to have some big European fixtures to look forwards to (especially if relegation is scrapped as wouldn't have to worry as much about risk of being distracted by Europe), but Leicester and Bath will get much better over the next few rounds and we feel a bit as if we are running out of steam...

I know what you feel. I ight start a Run-In thread to discuss what it could look like. But certainly no European Semi-Final or Final gives us two weeks of rest built in to this last run to the finish.

[Iron Lung]

We are in desperate need of a break, some of these players have been going week after week for a few months now. As much as I'd love to be in the semi the weekend off feels necessary right now.

As for tonight's game, it's going to be tough but we've come up against stronger teams in the last few weeks and more than held our own, I think we can do that here too.

[Narbia]

The wisdom of (opposing) crowds.

Copied the numbers from the Saints' board.

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Conclusion : 31 out 32 expecting a home win. ~23 out of 32 expecting a high scoring game (50+ points scored) and no-one expecting a low scoring game (21- points scored).

Ergo : tries to left of me, tries to right of me, here I am .....watching tries getting scored by the centres too.

I think an Irish win is still ~ 40% possible.

[GHA]

Still too many avoidable penalties - I'm assuming the TV people showed the wrong clip for Cowan's tackle at the end, but offside at least twice at rucks is ridiculous

Need to be tighter and get a couple of nice bounces second half

[Narbia]

Firstly, well done both teams for going out 'to play'. Great entertainment for the neutrals as well.

Saints imperious for about 20 mins 2nd half. Deserved winners. No complaints.

Just so glad we got something out of that match - considering the effort of some of our guys.

No bad performances, but one or two looking a bit fatigued.

Maybe this young Munga guy needs a start? It seems to me as though he's just dying to get
stuck in.

Edit : maybe I should read my own posts !

[M_W]

Munga did start.

Personally would have gone with Nott starting. Munga's got potential, but I think Nott offers more at the moment.

Dissappointing game really, but TBP secured at least. We never really looked like winning and could definitely do with some reinforcements being available up front for the run in. A few too many 'frustration' penalties conceded again. Really need to knock that on the head when we are behind on the scoreboard.

[GHA]

Yeah nice to see both teams having a go rather than the drudge that Bath served up. Just seems annoying that we make avoidable mistakes and gift teams the ball / yards / points, although I suppose all supporters of all teams think that - it's not often the opposition score a good try it's easier to find the fault in your own side rather than the skill in the oppo!

[M_W]

Yeah, Northampton played some really nice stuff tbf. Deserved winners. Would much rather lose a game like that than the one against Bath last week.

[GHA]

Nick Phipps snuck through a gap to power over and put the visitors ahead, but Wales fly-half Biggar drew a defender before finding Dingwall to level things up.

The visitors led for the only time when Ollie Hassell-Collins broke through a tackle to burst through

Interesting stuff from the BBC...

[shimmieandshake]

Yep, beaten by the better side.

We looked lightweight up front; surprised we didn't concede more scrum pens, with the way it was creaking. We never looked like stealing their lineout ball, whereas they were a constant threat on ours. Bar the early Tuisue steal and run, we never really came close to turning ball over, whereas Ludlam in particular was a menace, and they seemed to have a turnover threat at most breakdowns.

You're never really going to win in those circumstances, but is good to have backs that are incisive enough to get the TBP anyway. OHC is just ridiculous.

Agree with you MW, that Nott's ahead of Munya. He's certainly streets ahead in attack, with his running and offloading game. Munya very one-dimensional by comparison - head down, run hard into first man - but room to grow.

I thought Elrington was actually pretty good in the loose, but it's just not worth the cost of the scrum penalties that seem inevitable with him.

I also thought Stokes filled in very well, and pleased to see Phil C looking more at home at this level during his cameo.

Possibly the most frustrating aspect of the game was the kick-offs. It had a massive influence. We never threatened getting the ball back when kicking, and also gave away yellow. In contrast, twice Northampton won scrums on the 22, and amazing attacking platforms from it.

Poor kick-receive has been a bit of a theme recently. It really needs to be sorted out, and it would be great if we could develop the same threat when going forward too, getting Paddy to put up bigger bombs and training someone in the Piers Francis role. It seems a relatively simple skill with a massive amount to be gained from it.

[Stevie J]

I absolutely given the disparity in the announced teams would have taken a bonus point from this game, so in that regard mission accomplished.

The set piece was really our undoing. We have struggled all season on restarts. Not sure why so far it’s not fixable whether that’s on the receivers or lifters - it just seemingly is. Saints definitely ruled the roost at the breakdown. We just couldn’t stop them at times. The scrum was less an issue as Saints to their credit wanted to use the scrum as a restart and not a penalty machine.

• I felt the Loader yellow, in real time, was slightly harsh. The TMO says he’s going for the ball and maybe it’s my green tinted spectacles but when the Saint caught the ball it seemed Loader briefly touches his back with one hand but never drags him down, he’s more dropped? Maybe I saw that wrong.
• But we do seem to have this unfailing ability to compound errors. After that yellow with a scrum in our half, Phipps worried about no Loader over pursues and Mitchell outpaces our defence to the corner flag. Basic stuff. If you’re a man down at least make them string a few passes together and use the sideline.
• There’s few players I remember having a poor game but none other than OHC who had a good game. I thought Motu actually did alright and kept on the right side of the ref. Loader was shifty and I think unlucky with the yellow. Stokes at 13 did a valiant job.
• Bench all made good impact but the game was out of hand so we need to factor that in. But Nott, Cokanasiga both added impetus.
• I think if we want a top half finish then we need to win 3 more games. Our home form is good but we are going to need to pick up a win on the road.
• If we can sprinkle in WGC, Creevy, Coleman, Rogerson, SOB, Rona, Theo back into that team then it’s a lot stronger but our style is the same and very much ‘we are going to try and score more than you’. Hopefully next season we can cut the pens and improve the defence.

[SixNineOne]

I agree with shimmieandshake and Stevie J’s analysis. It was probably a great game for the neutral to watch, just a bit less so for the London Irish faithful. Our basic problem is that we wanted to play the same game as Saints but they were a bit better at it, particularly up front. If we had an all court game we could have tried shutting down the game and bashing it up front, like Sale or Bath might have done. But for now we don’t have that capability so we’ll have to live with playing open entertaining rugby that, heaven forbid, might actually attract a few new fans...

[GHA]

Felt to me like Loader went for the ball then realised he wasn't going to get there so tried to 'catch' Isiekwe to make sure he came down safely - which was then interpreted by the officials as him tackling in the air rather than trying to rectify the problem. Ah well.

Also OHC was very good but seemed a bit slow on the turn a couple of times - but I'm probably being a bit harsh considering the season he's having

[GC89]

Agree with most of what has been said on here. OHC was electric - I remained bit 50:50 on him for a while, but now he is clearly one of the best in the league and such a threat for us. I thought Tuisue was good actually - arguably our best forward. I agree that a lack of depth is an issue - most notably in the front row. I think if you add two really decent props to this squad then the back-ups in the rest of the pack suddenly look a whole lot better. To get a point is about par for me - need a big performance against Quins.