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History in the making
By Griff April 3 2008
No matter what happens this weekend it will be an historic milestone for London Irish. For the first time in the club's history LI will be playing in the quarter-finals of the upper-level ERC tournament - The Heineken Cup. The HC was over in January for LI during the previous two campaigns. With HC rugby in April we move into uncharted territory.
With the way the team has played recently the later HC fixture may even suit us. Irish have adopted an expansive game-plan under Brian Smith, attacking from anywhere they can. It's a tactic that has proved difficult when the ground is heavy but, so long as the April-showers can stay away, the drier tracks of late-season may allow us to cut loose.

The opponents were almost inevitable. The Catalans from Perpignan were highly unimpressed by their treatment in Reading for the pool-stage match and are looking to prove that they can win on English soil. Green-eyed viewers (and many neutrals) however are quick to point-out that USAP's failure at the MadStad was little to do with the referee - Malcolm Changleng - (as they claim) and more to do with the fact that they simply infringed far too much. Much of USAP's indignation about Mr Changleng's decisions focused on a maul late-on that cost them, in their eyes, a losing bonus-point. It seems odd to hark back to that, given that they came second in the pool by TWO points.

The other moment-of-note doesn't seem to be well-remembered on the other side of La Manche. Keiron Roche's horrible fractured eye-socket from the elbow of Perry Freshwater sticks in the minds of the Irish support. If selected, Mr Freshwater is guaranteed a "warm" welcome from the home crowd. He received a 4 week ban for the transgression from the citing officer but you couldn't help wonder what effect an on-pitch handling of the offence would have had...

Discipline will be the watch-word of both camps. Irish have had their own share of unwanted attention from whistle-blowers recently and will be keen to limit their penalty-count. There were good signs in the last GP match against Bristol that the Exiles can keep on the right-side of the arbiter. USAP will be hoping to show that their indiscipline in their last visit to the MadStad was only in the mind of a Scotsman.

With Allain Rolland in-charge, neither team will have any excuse for indiscipline. The Irish/Frenchman is a vastly experienced ref and will give no truck to any suggestions that his view is in any way incorrect. The winning side will be the one that picks up on his interpretations quickest and most accurately.

If Mr Rolland does keep indiscipline to a minimum we are in for a real treat of a game. Nobody seems to be able to call the result with any confidence, both sides can play with real flair. It could be a festival of running rugby, however cup games often suffer for one-off game tension which will make the contest fascinating, but possibly a bit dull. The end-result will probably be somewhere in the middle, experienced followers of the men-in-green will know that they'll make us go through the entire gamut of emotions on Saturday.

Irish finished the pool stages as second-highest try-scorers (scoring 25 in their 6 games - Saracens managed 27), a stark contrast to their lack of tries in the Guinness Premiership. USAP managed a few themselves (20 - giving them 5th spot in the tries-scored table) which could hint towards the rugby-festival end of the spectrum. USAP, ominously, also managed to keep their tries-against column impressively low (7 compared to Irish's 10) which may stifle any Exiles hopes.

If Irish make it through to a semi-final at Twickenham more history will be made - and I suspect a massive party may break-out. Bring it on!

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