LI 26 - 14 Wasps

It was a showery, occasionally blustery day at HQ. Such conditions were always going to make ball handling tricky and so it proved to be. To their credit both sides managed to hold on to the ball more often than drop it and provided an entertaining, if at times somewhat confusing, spectacle.

Before the game I asked a few of our number how they thought we'd do. The general consensus was that we'd lose and may do well to get a losing BP. This appeared to be the case from the off  as Wasps started brightly. For the first five minutes we were on the back foot. We rapidly conceded three penalties for offside, two on half way and a third on our 10m line. Van Gisbergen took a punt at this but it bounced off the post and we were able to clear our lines. We didn't realize it at the time but this marked the end of any Wasps initiative in the first half. For all the impact they made in the following 35 minutes the may as well have gone into the dressing room and had a good rest.

Our first attack, six minutes into the game, led to our first score a few minutes later. A promising break, by Topsy I think, was covered by the Wasps drift defence. The outcome was a Wasps lineout some 15m from their own line. Nick Kennedy, who was later to be named MOTM, stole this and tapped it down to Chris Hala´ufia. Where the Wasps cover was I simply don't know. Chris registered the first Premiership points of the 2008/9 season buy running in the easiest of tries under the posts. Hewat made the easy conversion. With nine minutes on the clock we were 7 – 0 up.

It wasn't to be long before our try scoring hero turned villain. Fifteen minutes into the half he was carded for a blatant and, I have to say, pointless trip on Eoin Reddan in midfield. So dire at this stage were our opponents that we hardly seemed to be bothered by his absence. Van Gisbergen missed the penalty for the offence and Hewat  slotted one over after Wasps were pinged for holding in front of their posts. To make matters even worse in this passage of play our opponents actually spurned a kickable three points to go for the corner. Their attempted catch and drive in what was at this stage pouring rain never looked like crossing the line. By the tome Chris came back on we'd actually managed to increase our lead. Another penalty a few minutes before half time saw us go into the break 13 – 0 up.

During the interval we pretty well all thought that, having been stung in the first half, Wasps would come out fighting. They actually came out early and conducted a mini training/warm up session on the pitch before the boys in green sauntered on. It didn't do them much good. Again the play was pretty well dominated by ourselves. Delon attempted and just missed a monster penalty attempt from 1m inside his own half. We chalked up our next score with a try, one of the softest I have ever seen conceded in the Premiership, on 53 minutes.

It all looked so innocuous. We had a lineout 30m from their line. Nothing looked particularly threatening.  The ball was thrown to Richard Thorpe who ran through a huge gap in the Wasps line, skipped past a rather lackluster attempt at a tackle and ran in under the posts.  Post match I have read some reports indicating that Wasps didn't adapt to new law changes, the ELVs, as well as they should have and that this was seen in their poor lineout. I'm not sure I agree with that analysis but I do know that they need to look long and hard at their tactics. They were in a mess. The score after 53 minutes, 20 – 0 to Irish was a fair reflection of the game. At this stage it looked as if it was pretty well game over.

The next try, this time to Wasps some five minutes later, was if anything more bizarre. Wasps were pressing but, even though they were only some 15m from our line, didn't appear to be presenting any immediate danger. Tom Rees, seemingly out of nowhere, broke free from a maul and ran in. Our cover was non existent. In fact the players present seemed more likely to form an honour guard and applaud him in that present any attempt to stop the try. Fifty eight minutes on the clock and the score is 20 – 7.  Surely they couldn't steal it?

The simple answer was that they couldn't. We stretched the lead again with a pair of sweetly struck penalties. Hewat had a great game both from the spot and with ball in hand. When Eoin Reddan scored Wasps second try, a sweet run from the back of a maul. It was too little, too late. There were five minutes left on the clock, we were 26 – 14 up. The only question at this stage was could Wasps steal a losing BP. It is to the enormous credit of our defence that the couldn't. We fought like tigers to keep them out. That was the final score.

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