It didn’t look promising. After the opening exchanges, Irish got a penalty and their full back Peter Hewat slotted it over. Before we’d even got into the game we were 0-3 in the first minute!

Moments later Harlequins were awarded a penalty in a reasonably kickable position. Reasonably kickable for anyone but Malone, as the Molly Disappreciation Society (MDS) around me were quick to point out. But, no, wonders of wonders he kicked a good three pointer (although it shaved the right post more than I’d have liked). 3-3 after five minutes.

Seven minutes into the game Tom Guest won a line out ball, Malone released David Strettle who made a huge run upfield, avoiding at least four attempts to tackle him and showing his strength as well as his guile. He was brought down short of the line but the ball was recycled and Malone did a nice miss pass to Ugo who powered over for a try! Uuuuugoooo!

Unfortunately this was more or less on the Lexus touch line (or is it back to The West Stand touch line?). Anyway, the kick was from there and the MDS were convinced this was a waste of time. Molly fooled us all by kicking a beautiful conversion. 7 minutes into the game and we’re 10-3 up against Irish, who would have thought?

There follows 10 minutes of to-ing and fro-ing and kicks up and kicks down. It’s clear Irish’s vaunted line out is broken. Minty puts himself about and is everywhere. After a particularly bruising charge, he has to stop with bruised ribs by the look of it. We’re winning the breakdowns and Irish can’t string three passes together without dropping it. Please let it continue!

Just when I’m convinced that Dean Richards (the ref) is going to give us nothing despite all the help the Lexus has been offering, he pings Irish for not rolling away. Up steps Molly and its 13-3 and not even 20 minutes gone.

On the 25^th minute Tom Guest starts the move, which results in his try. He gets the ball over half way, Malone and Care keep the ball alive and he scores a beautiful try from a well-worked overlap. Malone by now is well in the groove and sinks the conversion no problem. 20-3 and not even half time.

Just after this Andy Gomarsall and Tani start warming up just in front of the West Stand, so we treat Tani to a chorus of “One F in Fuga, there’s only one F in Fuga!” Andy Gomarsall is highly amused and Tani’s shoulders can be seen shaking, but he doesn’t acknowledge us!

There’s some more up and down the field stuff, but we look comfortable. Irish’s line out still isn’t firing. Peter Richards is getting stick from the crowd and knocks on. We even see that rarest of beasts a rolling maul for a brief time.

Then there’s an innocuous looking line out on half way. The ball goes back Irish’s way, Peter Hewat puts boot to ball and it bounces through our line, a clever kick to Delon Armitage and a try to Irish. Was he offside? I couldn’t see but a number of people round me thought so. Anyway, conversion is missed (it was tricky) and we go in half time 20-8.

At half time we get to see Andre Vos again! He’s here to promote his new charity and the club’s charity for this season and the next, HOPEHIV. (Find out more about HOPEHIV on their website, www.hopehiv.org, or give them a call on freephone 0808 1000420. Registered Charity number 1079385)

Second half kicks off. We’re all sure that try before half time was just an aberration – a combination of Harlequins taking their foot off the gas and London Irish getting a couple of lucky bounces. I’m thinking “they always say don’t let your opponents score each side of half time”.

We obviously have a cunning plan for the second half, one which Irish will not be prepared for. We attempt to play the entire second half in our 22! If we do get any possession the rule is this has to be kicked away as soon as possible and not into open space.

We give away a soft penalty but the Irish kicker misses for once, so we breathe a sigh of relief. We replace Easter for Robshaw. At this point its still looking good and Irish defence is still looking a bit panicky.

We get a penalty for hands in the ruck, which Malone misses. A few moments later Irish miss another penalty, but about 15 minutes into the game we give away a penalty for offside which they duly kick to make it 20-11.

Shortly after the restart Irish finally string a good line out together. Chris Hala’ufia charges up the middle, Hodgson to Hewat then a miss pass to Delon Armitage then a foot race down the right wing and another try. Danny Care was convinced he’d gone over the dead ball line, but Dean Richards wasn’t interested. Duly converted its now 20-18 and Harlequins fans are nervous and Irish fans are now in full voice.

We get a line out on their 5-metre line, which we then lose. This leads to a line out near their 20-metre line.  We do a bit of pick and go (the pick part works fine but the go goes nowhere). With Danny Care somewhere in the previous ruck Chris Robshaw acts as scrum half and Irish intercept his telegraphed pass and Peter Hewat runs 60 metres to touch down under the posts. No problem with the conversion and we’re 20-25 down – what is going on?

Dean Richards mysteriously gives a penalty against Harlequins for something or other (offside?) when clearly we had three players to their one and their one was holding on.  The kick thumps against the right hand post and bounces left. The assistant referees pause before agreeing its over and we’re 20-28 down.

We’re running out of time and Irish are going through the play book of how to waste time. Kicks take an age to happen, scrums are reset and reset and reset…

However you can’t keep a good man down and Danny Care takes a huge miss pass and scores. Biggles converts and we’re 27-28!

With the countdown clock on zero we work hard to move the ball upfield. First we get to our 22, then our 10 metre then half way, then the Irish 10m. Unfortunately here under little pressure Tom Williams knocks on and the game is over!

Congratulations to Irish, commiserations to Harlequins! You’ll not convince me Irish won that game, Harlequins lost it and handed them the victory!

In the press conference afterwards someone said Chester Williams was in the stand and didn’t seem to be there with Andre Vos. No, I can’t get a good rumour out of that either!

Toby Booth was first up.

He said that there had been too much emotion in Irish’s game in the first half and not enough consistency. He said they had to stop getting into the kind of position where they were 20-3 down. He agreed the first half try was a lucky turnover but with that momentum shifted. There was still plenty of belief and enthusiasm at half time, it just needed harnessing. With a small squad of 35 players, replacements who came on had to add value. Bob Casey coming on was a huge boost.

He was happy the game was very entertaining, and that it was played in a positive and pragmatic way by Irish.. He thought the ref had a great game and operated with empathy for the attacking team.

Then Deano came on.

He thought we had a great first half. We played a poor territory game in the second half, made some poor decisions and let them into the game. He couldn’t see a reason why for the second time in a week we faded in the second half. For 30 minutes we couldn’t clear our lines and take the pressure off. It was irritating we gave away the try in the dying minutes of the first half, that gave them a sniff and they took it. He wasn’t critical of the ref, who got a good game out of the players.

Were the players fit enough? Yes – look at the last 10 minutes when we scored the try and so nearly got the ball down to drop goal territory!

As for other competitions, they’ll worry about them once Thursday is out the way!

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