This scheme had been concocted months ago as a farewell do to a Bath Supporter we had met in the Boater back in 2006 (if you were there you would very well remember him and the song!) who is relocating to Canada in April. So Nat and I jumped in the car and started off on our road trip to Bath without any music, I can blame her for this as I know she won’t read this report. On the 1 and a half our drive to Bath not including getting lost in Bath itself we encountered extreme weather conditions ranging from snow, rain, sleet, sunshine and not in that particular order.
So we arrived at the hotel – the boys had decided to camp (more fool them) and then headed to the Pig & Whistle where I only saw 1 LI shirt in the entire place and onto the Boater where we bumped into some of the usual suspects for a swift pint and application of moustaches and off we went to the Rec.

Having not organised the seats I was slightly dismayed to find myself directly behind on of the posts in the front row – there is a great picture I took of my view and I’ll try and get the Eds to insert it but I’m not saying that is my excuse for a poor report as I could have told you it was going to be awful before I started writing it.

But onto the game ………..
With all of the international players back from the Six Nations and far too many injuries on the Irish side for my liking we started to play into a really strong wind. The pressure in the beginning all seemed to be coming from the boys but with some great plays all we could gain from this was a penalty as the Bath defence held strong. Hickey took and the score was Irish 3 – 0 Bath at 12 minutes.

Soon after Lipman was tackled by Topsy which could have been the first try of the game, but Bath levelled the score when Irish was caught offside making it 3-3.
It wasn’t until the 21st minute that a clever little kick into the left hand corner which Micheal Stephenson touch down. Barclay missed the conversion making it 3- 8 to Bath with plenty of time to play.
Hickey pulled back another 3 points with an impressive 45m kick into the wind.
Irish were then penalised in the 33rd minute for handling in the ruck, Barclay did the honours 6-11.

Next we had 2 cards (luckily one to each team) just before half time. De Vedia for a late tackle and Jonny Faamatuiano for throwing a punch at Mike Catt. Both Hickey and Barclay kicked making the score at half time 9-14 to Bath.
But what would the second half bring?

Irish seemed to come out with renewed enthusiasm putting Bath under a lot of pressure in their 22 but nothing came of it. Then came a classy bit of trickery from Barkley going to kick the ball and then passing, it then found it’s way to Stephenson who made it through the defense to pass Matt Banahan who then scored in the left hand corner again. The wind stopped the conversion going through 9-19.
Our lineout started to do the business and with more ball Irish started to make some significant ground and it seemed like Bath were on the backfoot. Would it be possible to score 2 tries or more and make this our result? We had seen it done before.

Hickey had 2 penalties which both were wide of the mark however we kept the pressure on. Ross Broadfoot a recent signing from Cambridge University replaced Hickey in the 68th minute. Irish stole a lineout and again we were heading back to the Bath 22. Sailosi offloaded to Broadfoot who managed to slip his way through two bath tackles before scoring a try on his debut. Conversion was nicely added.
Right there was 8 minutes left to play was it possible? Could we snatch victory in the dying seconds?

Both teams knew what was at stake and the battle commenced. London Irish pushing for any points that would mean a win. As the seconds were ticking down Declan Danaher was passed the ball and drove for the try line but it wasn’t meant to be. Peter short put in an amazing tackle and he was taken into touch. The game was over as the whistle blew.

The thing I have always loved about London Irish is win, lose or draw we always have a good time and boy did we!!
I think Bath is still recovering from the Cowboys.

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