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By SixNineOne
#36937
Our officials on Sunday are:

Referee: Karl Dickson
ARs: Mike Hudson & Rob Warburton
TMO: David Rose

Not everyone’s first choice…
By GHA
#36954
London Irish:
15 Tom Parton, 14 Ben Loader, 13 Curtis Rona, 12 Terrence Hepetema, 11 Ollie Hassell-Collins, 10 Paddy Jackson, 9 Nick Phipps, 1 Allan Dell, 2 Agustin Creevy, 2 Marcel van der Merwe, 4 Steve Mafi, 5 Rob Simmons, 6 Matt Rogerson (c), 7 Isaac Curtis-Harris, 8 Albert Tuisue.

Replacements:
16 Matt Cornish, 17 Will Goodrick-Clarke, 18 Ollie Hoskins, 19 Adam Coleman, 20 Ben Donnell, 21 Ben White, 22 Rory Jennings, 23 Benhard van Rensburg
By GHA
#36955
Gloucester Rugby
15. Santiago Carreras
14. Louis Rees-Zammit
13. Chris Harris
12. Mark Atkinson
11. Jonny May
10. Adam Hastings
9. Ben Meehan

1. Val Rapava-Ruskin
2. Jack Singleton
3. Kirill Gotovtsev
4. Freddie Clarke
5. Matias Alemanno
6. Ruan Ackermann
7. Lewis Ludlow (c)
8. Ben Morgan

16. Santiago Socino
17. Harry Elrington
18. Jamal Ford-Robinson
19. Freddie Thomas
20. Jack Clement
21. Charlie Chapman
22. Billy Twelvetrees
23. Kyle Moyle
User avatar
By Narbia
#36956
Good to see ICH getting a start.

Now, all we need is for our second hooker to throw his 1st arrows to the front! Thereafter he'll be alright.
Screenshot 2021-10-16 at 23-31-08 Gallagher Premiership Betting Odds Rugby Union.png
Screenshot 2021-10-16 at 23-31-08 Gallagher Premiership Betting Odds Rugby Union.png (19.17 KiB) Viewed 4255 times
Marginal favourite in a must-win game.......hmmm? :googledeyed:
Last edited by Narbia on Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By Florida
#36957
Finally we get to see ICH, very pleased with that as he looked full of vim, vigour and aggression in the pre-season friendly. Hopefully he'll add the snarl and bite our back row has been missing.

Nice to see a move away from the 6/2 split as well, I'm always worried when we go with that
User avatar
By SixNineOne
#37091
This is going to be an interesting test of where we are. We’ve played enough games that we should have our game plan sorted, and we haven’t got any big name absences from the squad. We’re up against a Gloucester team that looks to be pretty much in the same position - they’re missing a few well known names: Ed Slater, Jake Polledri and Jason Woodward, but they’ve probably got a deeper squad than us, so they’re still fielding a decent match day 23. It’s only sad that they’ve got Harry Elrington on the bench rather than in the starting 15, as I was looking forward to his match up against Marcel! This is looking like a “must win” game to me.
By Florida
#37184
Well this is a tad frustrating, Glaws shouldn't be in this. Hopefully a team talk that gets the boys to ratchet it up another level and start turning all this great possession into points
By M_W
#37185
How on earth are we only 8 points up here.

If we end up losing this one I'm not sure I can continue following the club*



*Joking. Probably.
By Florida
#37190
M_W wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:54 pm
How on earth are we only 8 points up here.

If we end up losing this one I'm not sure I can continue following the club*



*Joking. Probably.
You may be joking but I'm very close to being done. If we do lose this, which it's got that feel of running away from us I think I'll be taking a break from the team for a few weeks / months / seasons.
By M_W
#37194
Why the DG. It's such a low % play from that range.

So frustrating
User avatar
By Narbia
#37199
Well I think Matt Rogerson got MOTM, and he stepped up today.
Apart from that I'm *so* glad we didn't lose. :lol Mental first half.

Could've/should've/would've won that. :dizzy:

I'd love to hear Mick Crossan's thoughts on the start to this season.
By M_W
#37201
Such an odd season that's sending me to an early grave.

The frustrating thing is that we are competitive and have been the better team more often than not.

Few bigger losses in a row though and it all begins to look pretty grim.
User avatar
By SixNineOne
#37205
As Florida said, at least were not Bath supporters, although after today’s performance at the Rec I’m wondering if I shouldn’t reconsider…
The frustrating thing about today at the Brentford Community Stadium was that we just don’t seem to have learned anything. We get a line out in the opposition 22 and Matt Cornish has his first throw. Sure enough it’s called to the tail and he overthrows it. That has happened practically every game so far - surely someone has the nous to call the ball to the front to give him a first throw sighter. Any other team that is camped just outside the opposition 22 at the 80 minute mark would play through the phases with a fairly good chance that the opposition will give away a penalty. Not us! Once again we shun that sensible route and try the 40 yard drop goal, which is doomed to failure 99 times out of 100. There is a lot of good stuff being done out there which is being neutralised by moments of really dumb stuff. We should have been home and hosed by half time, but a combination of sloppy errors and failure to push home our advantage let them back in. We just seem to lack those hard nosed game management skills. This is particularly galling because looking at individual players, I think they all put in a good shift. Matt Rogerson seems to have stepped up his play in the last couple of games and I thought ICH made a very promising start. That try will have done his confidence no harm. With Ben Donnell’s hamstring injury, he may well get to start next week too. Declan blithely says is just a matter of time and the wins will come - without some better game management, I’m feeling less confident!
As a final thought, I found it somewhat surprising that Gloucester managed not to give away any penalties for offside, given that their back line was consistently pushing forward too early and their pack members made a habit of loitering round our side of the ruck, so much so that one of Phipps’ passes actually hit an offside Gloucester player and Karl Dickson decided just to wave play on. All credit to Gloucester for spotting that the offside line was not being policed, but it is frustrating when we have to put up with such weak officiating.
By Lazyboy346
#37210
Agreed on the offside, some fans near me were overzealous initially calling it but their players seemed to take it as an instruction.

Swing point for me though was that there appeared to be a shoulder to OHC's head by May on the south touchline a couple of phases before LRZ's interception. If so, poor work by the assistant who was standing just by it and didn't blink.

Regardless of the result, Gus has gained even more respect from me if that were even possible. Not only is he a brilliant club man, an excellent hooker, jackaller and try scorer but he also did the exact right thing to intervene and ensure that Dickson was aware of Elrington needing medical help. Values of the game right there.
By bigbitty
#37242
If you didn't know the final score, and tried to guess using those stats, you would have assumed an overwhelming victory for LI.
shimmieandshake liked this
By shimmieandshake
#37252
Sigh. How have we failed to win that?

Phipps is so error prone that it's just a liability. Every week, another ridiculous error. Frequently kicking out on the full from outside the 22. The energy and zip he brings at his best just isn't worth the negative side.

On the other hand, every time I see Ben White, he looks a class act. I know who my starting 9 would be.

The very good news, which shouldn't be overlooked, is how continually solid our scrum looks. The bad news is that our maul defence hasn't improved with it.
By GC89
#37311
Caught up on the game today. Certainly an easier watch when you know what is coming. Having said that, the drop goal effort at the end was baffling. We should have played the phases and hopefully eked out a penalty, especially with two playmakers on the field to stretch the Glaws defence. Agree with shimmie on the scrums - love what van der Merwe has brought in that area and WGC has been great on the other side too.

Onto the bigger questions, I just can't make my mind up on K&K. How can a team with so many experienced heads fail to see games out? On the flip side, at least we are competitive in the majority of games that we now play. A lot is made of this being the "best" squad we have assembled in years and whilst that is true, every other club in the Premiership has a really good squad. Newcastle and Worcester are probably the only two you could say we are definitely stronger than (on paper). What is clearer though is that the money we have spent has not been spent particularly well. As has been said here and elsewhere, I am still semi-reluctant to say "start again" as I think there is a clear downside to that too, but I also think expectations have changed. The next two home games are now must win for me. If we get to Christmas with no home wins then I think Crossan will finally catch up with the sector of fans that want change...
SixNineOne liked this
User avatar
By SixNineOne
#37384
Kidney’s post match comments after the last few games highlight the inevitable frustration of being so close (but so far), but the underlying theme seems to be that if we just stick with it, the wins will come and that there is no sense in pushing the panic button. He’s been very consistent in his squad selection so far which reflects this attitude, but also means that players such as Jennings, van Rensburg and Stokes are getting precious little first team game time, which I find a bit worrying. So the question is, when does he start to mix things up a bit? Do we take a punt down at Sandy Park and put out a different line-up? Im not convinced of the merits of putting the same line up out again against a Chiefs side that’s starting to hit its stride. It’s forecast to be a windy old day down there on Saturday which probably adds to the home advantage. So perhaps he should think about giving some of our players a rest and freshen things up a bit.

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