[shimmieandshake]

Any team predictions? Since Albert's away, I'm expecting Rogerson to be at 8 with Pearson at 6. Also wouldn't be surprised to see Rowe in for Stokes. Would be nice to see Coleman on the bench; assume no-one here has details on his current ailment?

Also, we can win this game. Obviously not if we play like we did against Bristol, but this is going to be a seriously depleted Sarries side. With Koch and Riccioni now away, who plays tighthead? Clarey? With who on the bench? I think they lose Mako's back-up loosehead to Fiji also. So will Mako go 80? Given the form of our scrum this season, it's not totally out of the question to see us actually asserting some dominance at scrum time.

And with Tompkins with Wales and Morris apparently injured, who plays centre? I assume they'll move Goode to 10, Loz in the centre with A.N Other.

Anyway, they're going to be depleted and filling gaps. If we can get back close to the Exeter standard, and, you know, defend the blindside every now and again, we can at least be seriously competitive in this game.

I'm probably being hideously optimistic. All part of the fun. And pain.

[M_W]

I'm saying nothing this week. Burnt by my misplaced optimism pre Bristol.

[Florida]

I wasn't optimistic after the Exeter game nor am I for this game. The team still feels the same as the one from our first return to the premiership. When they turn up, turn it on for 80 minutes they are excellent (like when we beat Quins in the opening round of the 2017/18 season), but all too often they go missing during a game. The difference between the newly promoted London Irish and today's London Irish is now we have players capable of fighting our way back into games, before we just had Lewington.

[Stevie J]

Albert and Mafi plus our two new Argentineans are away (Gigena was injured). Looks like Donnell, Lovejoy, Gigena, Loader, SOB and perhaps Dell and Coleman are out injured.

I'd imagine we'll go full bore again given we have two Prem Rugby Cup weeks coming up with a chance to play the youngsters. Something like:

WGC, Creevy, Van Der Merwe
Simmons, Nott
Pearson / Cooke, Rogerson, Curtis-Harris
Phipps
Jackson
Hepetema, Rona
OHC, Parton, Rowe

[shimmieandshake]

Is Mafi definitely away? Thought he would be, but he's not in the Tonga 23.

[shimmieandshake]

Better than expected; nice surprise with Coleman starting and Mafi benching.

Shame no Rona, but thought BJVR was possibly our best player vs. Bristol, and keen to see him get more of a run.

[M_W]

Not bad team wise all things considered.

Great to have Coleman back and hopefully Rona is good to go again after the Prem Cup games.

[shimmieandshake]

Yep. Intrigued to see how Nott/Pearson/Rogerson cover Albert's carrying and turnover threat.

Seems to be a job for Pearson, though I think it would be asking a lot of him to hit the heights of his Exeter performance again.

Sarries side above.

[Narbia]

Screenshot 2021-11-05 at 13-10-00 London Irish confirm squad for trip to Saracens 5th November 2021 News.png (36.15 KiB) Viewed 5215 times

Better availability than I otherwise thought. Kick for the corner and maul over? Hope so.

Edit :
Well the odds have shortened from about googolplex/1 for Saracens and similar amounts against LI, to half that. So someone somewhere is betting on LI.

[SixNineOne]

The officials for tomorrow's match are:

Referee: Ian Tempest (96th Premiership match as referee)
ARs: Phil Watters & Jamie Leahy
TMO: Stuart Terheege

Seeing Ian Tempest's name used to fill me with dread, but I think he's much improved over the last 18 months or more, so I'm hoping for an uneventful game from the adjudication point of view, and let's just hope Stuart Terheege isn't called into action!

I was also interested to see that Ben Loader was mentioned on the www.rugbyreferee.net website. Apparently he's got the whistle for Croatia v Slovenia in the Rugby Europe Championship. And there was me thinking he was injured...

[Narbia]

[M_W]

This team, seriously. Absurd sometimes.

[shimmieandshake]

Even having learned to expect some pretty convoluted surprises from this team, that was surprising.

Very composed at the end, I thought. In years gone by, there would be a lame handling error anywhere in the last ten minutes to kill the momentum, or a forced pass, or an over elaborate low-odds kick-pass or something of that ilk. Right to the death, we were poised.

I can't get enough of Pearson. He should be our starting 7 for Quins and onwards. Always in the right place. Very disciplined. Nasty hits, nasty yards. Nuisance.

BJVR and Rowe both excellent - there's a real zip and energy about both of them - and getting better and better with each game. Crucial to have that competition to push Loader and Rona on.

[Florida]

Well I don't know about the rest of you but I'm absolutely fuming after that.

Wow oh wow if we're capable of keeping the ball with the clock in the red and getting the try against a tough defense like sarries did we go for two poor, hurried drop goals in the other games?

Seriously though, the fight in this team is staggering.

[Lazyboy346]

Yeah, the drop goals have felt a bit desperate given the positions we were in both times. Much better to risk going for a fourth try and claiming 5pts or forcing a kick able penalty than to try the drop from difficult angles with little protection off the ruck.

Still, can't feel too bad for averaging over 2pts a game. When did we last have as a good a start to a season as that?

[GHA]

Watching it back, does anyone else think there was a change of direction from Wray that could've mitigated the red down to yellow? It wasn't a Quade Cooper step but there definitely was something there that took him directly into Coleman...

I also enjoyed the Mako 'take me off, job done' substitution sign after he scored his try. Big Saracens smiled all round. At least Mike Catt waited till the 75th minute (and 37 years of age) before his signal

[Stevie J]

While it was the absolute correct decision (just in time too, otherwise Coleman would have played an actual game) I agree there seemed no discussion of Wray’s step into the tackle. But Coleman coming in fast and upright may have negated that anyway. There’s some interesting contract decisions about to happen and his is very interesting, I wonder if we will try to extend him.

As for the rest, I don’t know what to say. As happy as I am we have the ability to comeback let’s face facts. As ill advised as Mako signalling to come off was, job done after all, until they emptied the bench we really didn’t have a shot. They could have mauled us out of the game. But they didn’t and we scored enough to draw.

Positives? Take a boo Kyle Rowe. Unlike last season we have a viable alternative to Loader and OHC when they need a rest or are injured. Pearson I felt continues to play well. Jennings to nail that last minute conversion was something else and to see the team mob him was very special indeed. Phipps, who didn’t play that well against Bristol, ran himself into the ground. Thought he was very good with White coming on and doing very well in those last few minutes.

[shimmieandshake]

Agreed, Stevie. Phipps was good yesterday. Could definitely feel his influence as a leader from the stands, especially when we were struggling.

Also beginning to feel Rogerson's leadership more. Hope he enjoys a couple of weeks off now.

Of the unsung lot, thought Nott made some good yards in tough quarters, and that was the best we've seen from Willemse - nailed his darts, and punchy in the loose.

WGC was very good again also. He's right up there in terms of our signings in the last five years.

[M_W]

Watched that 2nd half again in the cold light of day. That last 20 minutes was the best I've seen the team play for many a year. We were absolutely relentless in attack and almost completely error free. Just wave after wave of guys hitting lines at pace and text book clear-outs. The intensity and accuracy was unreal. It really was less about Sarries being complacent and more about our application during that period. All with 14 men as well.

Some general thoughts on the game:

• Quick mention for OHC's cover tackle on Lewington. His defence is so strong.

• Pearson looked decent again. Does everything angry on the pitch. Carries, tackles and clears out with real velocity.

• BJVR is a great signing. Adds some real zip to the midfield

• Despite often getting a bad press, Phipps was awesome. I'd love to see how much ground he covers in a game. Great support line for his try and was there on hand if Rowe had needed him. Also put in a cracking cover tackle on Earl. Most importantly, he gets to the ruck and gets the ball away very quickly.

• Shout out to Mafi's two running pick ups from the base. Not a big thing, but you have to be pretty skillful to do that and not knock on.

• Rowe's clearly a keeper. Offers something from nothing in a way Stokes probably doesn't

Most pleasing thing is how well the new signings seem to be gelling. Despite the lack of big names, we did some cracking business this summer. It's clearly a very happy setup. Clearly the first 8 games could have gone a lot better in the W column, but I'm fairly optimistic that we are heading in the right direction.

[Stevie J]

Was pointed out to me earlier today but we haven’t even spoken about Van Der Merwe. 7 man scrum for 60 minutes and we were never in trouble. Van Der Merwe has absolutely solidified that scrum and allows Hoskins to come off the bench for the last 20.

Hopefully Lovejoy can come back and further spell him because he’s doing a great job.

[Ruckinggood]

Interesting point and no one can fault his scrummaging but his impact elsewhere is somewhat underwhelming for a Springbok. The four scrums he had were great but three missed tackles, a couple of penalties and nine involvements in the game undermines his impact at set piece. If you look at Hoskins's stats for the Sarries game, carried the ball more times than anyone else in the game on both sides in his 22 mins equaling Rogerson who was on all game. He also made all of this tackles and had over 30 involvements. His scrummaging has massively improved though VDM is a beast there. Having two very different props makes for a great mix but I would want to see more impact elsewhere from VDM before I get too excited.

[Stevie J]

@Ruckinggood you'll need to tell me where these stats are as things like 'involvements' are not on the official Prem Rugby website: https://www.premiershiprugby.com/match- ... statistics

Their stats have it as:

• VDM - 51 minutes, 6 carries for 10 metres, 7 tackles, 1 missed tackle, 1 turnover won, 2 defenders beaten
• Hoskins - 29+ mins, 16 carries for 27 metres, 3 tackles, 0 missed tackles, 0 turnovers won, 0 defenders beaten

This is not to try to say you're wrong - Hoskins impact off the bench and in certain games is great, he gives a lot more around the park. I just think we are all battle scarred enough to have seen plenty of London Irish scrum pens turn into lineouts, into mauls, into yellow cards. VDM and WGC were up against starters, Dell and Hoskins against back-ups. They all played their roles pretty well.

[shimmieandshake]

16 carries in less than half an hour! Good lord. That's some shift from Hos.

re: MVDM, you can't put enough value on the solidity of the scrum. It's murdered us in recent seasons. It's now a strength.

I also think he's been good beyond the scrum. Decent if unspectacular carrying (though I hope there's a little more to come) and seriously deft hands - some memorable pick ups, for instance, and the back-of-the-hand pass to put Parton in the corner vs. Sale was a touch of class.

Balance is the key thing, really. MVDM's solidity gives Hoskins license to play as he has done this year.

[Narbia]

I'd say there's a pretty big contrast to the output of Bondai Hoskins this year to what he was last season.

He really seemed to have lost his mojo at the scrum and elsewhere, last time. This year the turnaround has been pretty obvious. Not least in doing all the hard yards in ball carrying. Hardly set a foot wrong this year.

Long may it continue.....