Backs Batter Irish

Yes I know it's a somewhat controversial headline (although factually correct) but the starting fly half and full back paid me to write it...

The first game back after the christmas period is always a potential banana skin and judging by the number of complaints in the changing room as to the tightness of the shirts it appeared as if several people had enjoyed christmas.

We had a great squad (see below) although it was a little weakend by a no show from fab who was sadly unavailable last minute writing dodgy derivatives and Kirk Douglas who had a business deal to put together involving a boiler and a pipe. However with a large squad the likes of aidy, matt, mike and alex very kindly offered to warm the bench in the first half although mawson seemed particularly keen not to come on in the first half....

It would be fair to say the warm up was not the best, a few minutes of touch giving the new debutant alex an opportunity to witness pa trying a dummy and then an opportunity to see pa spitting his dummy as a few people ignored his questionable stretching routine.

Anyway, london irish having been garotted by guildford were clearly up for the match, with the usual suspects in attendance and we observed them going through a great pre match warm up...

Your matchday reporter having surprisingly been selected as first half captain managed to get the right tactics by going up the hill and against the wind in the first half...and so they kicked off.

London Irish are a very good side but we immediately had them under the pressure in the scrum, with gavin, karl and brian pushing them back a number of times against the head supporting by big jim, ryan and greeny and largely demolishing their scrum. With Paul Baker, paul lister and chris aka quasi modo langrish dishing out the dark arts at the breakdown and greeny, ryan and big jim making good ground in open play we soon had them on the back foot.

However against the run of play london irish scored a very nice try when our fullback who shall rename nameless (pa) tried to run it out of his 22, and when he failed, they turned over the ball and scored. Not to worry we thought only to see a similar set of events repeat itself (a result of a very wayward pass from our fly half who shall also remain nameless (loisoz) to wally!) five minutes later leading to irish being two tries up....

We then realised, the usual game plan, was the right game plan and with a dream pairing of salts and wally carving through london irish and some hard yards by the forwards led by karl booth and big jim we made real progress into london irish territory. This led to a scrum and a push over try led by all the forwards. Thankfully hugh as scrum half, realising a forward was likely to score here, which would have been unacceptable managed to pinch the ball from greeny and dabbed down over line having let the forwards expend all their energy, well played hugh.

A turnaround at half time and a stern talking to by wally led us to a more focussed second half, we kicked to the bottom left hand corner and a few great drives by the forwards followed by a spin out to the backs enabled loisoz to ignore the large overlaps and to dive over in the corner and partially redeem himself.

immediately we kicked off again and with the forwards now controlling the platform, pa was able to sneak over for the third try following some excellent hands from loisoz, salts and wally and also redeem himself for the first half mishap.

One could sense mawson on the sidelines now champing at the bit thinking the game was over and he trotted on, only to realise the pace of the game was a bit of a challenge, made a few good tackles and breaks and then had manufactured a blood injury to get himself off as soon as possible.

After another great set of drives by the forwards, particularly by ryan, greeny and gavin, loisoz spun it wide to marren who handed off his winger and scored in the corner, normal service resumed.

Mike Goodman then came on and like an old classic car, the silver fox purred beautifully up and down the left wing without breaking down or stopping for petrol once with some nice interplay between salts, pa an dian

Credit to london irish and disappointingly to us, we then dropped the tempo and they scored two or three very well deserved tries with further tries only prevented by the excellent tackling of both alex and ian. Matt Ferraby came on to also steady the ship and looked at one point to be dishing out some jason staham type justice to some opposite numbers who didn't seem particularly worried.

Moving swiftly on, chris 'mike catt' salter then scored two beautiful tries evading the clutches of the large number eight and put us comfortably out of reach of london irish before the referee thankfully blew for full time before we entirely run out of puff as despite our large squad we actually run out of players due to match injuries....

The old adage, forwards win matches and the backs decide by how much was never truer today. Congratulations to london irish for a very good game as ever and for coming back for some drinks and even more congratulations to our backs, I mean all quins team for putting up a great performance seriously the forwards did a lot more work than the backs as ever! Two weeks time old paulines and some more training to burn off the xmas calories is needed!!

Your match day reporter...

Karl
Brian
Matt
Gav
Big Jim
Ryan
Baker
Greeny
Hugh T
Mawson
Mike Goodman
Fab
PA
Wally
Ian Thynne