lirish

THE CHERRY AND WHITES must save their sorry sub-standard showings for fixtures with London Irish.
After a shocking display at the Madsjski back in November they did it again, this time at Kingsholm.
On a day when a cold wind had more bite than Gloucester, another depressing lack of performance by the home side surrendered the season’s unbeaten home record and handed limited London Irish an away win—their first at Kingsholm since 1993 – and a deserved double over their opponents.
As at Reading late last year, Gloucester’s pack struggled throughout the match to achieve parity in all departments against their heavier opponents in the tight, loose and line-out.
We all knew Phil Vickery would be missed but sadly without him the Gloucester team lacked inspired leadership, authority and suffered from poor decision making.
It should be said that Gloucester’s cause was not helped by South African international referee Jonathon Kaplan, whose interpretations were mind-boggling at times, as all too often he allowed Irish infringements such as forward passes, high tackles, plus accidental and the continual deliberate off-side tactics to go un-punished.
Living off scraps Gloucester’s international contenders also did little to impress.
Peter Richards made a couple of breaks but had a real bad pass day. Tins didn’t make a break all afternoon whilst Sinbad was limited to a few glimpses of his real potential, counter-attacking from deep. Alex Brown was unable to dominate the line out exchanges and replacement James Forrester made little impact.
London Irish will not be disrupted by international call –ups and had done their home-work on Gloucester. Thanks to their pack they enjoyed more possession and fly half New Zealander Riki Flutey played the corners well, where their big beefy pack was invariably in control and set up the only try of the game.
A close affair was anticipated and so it turned out to be in a low scoring encounter, with only limited possession Gloucester got the simple basics wrong, losing the ball in contact, unable to sustain continuity and momentum, with an inability to establish territory for any length of time, or to build by stringing together a succession of passing movements, or mount any concerted forward pressure.
All too often Gloucester were on the back foot and reduced to attempts to run the ball out from deep through isolated breaks from Peter Richards and James Simpson-Daniel, in a scrappy and dis-jointed game.
Mercier and Flutey exchanged early penalties but the Irish pack enjoyed the greater share of possession going forward before they eventually made a breakthrough just before half time, when their Argentine number eight Juan Leguizamon was driven over. Flutey converted from wide out to put the Exiles in front at 10-3.
Thereafter sensing they had enough up front, they were able to shut up shop, stop playing and sit back on their lead.
Gloucester huffed and puffed in the second half but were unable to make much headway other than a couple of successful penalty kicks from Ludo and became increasingly frustrated without a platform of possession to build on.
It was of little consequence that the home side did provide the best moves of a poor game, the first coming when an arcing run from winger James Bailey took him to within a couple of feet of the try line where Irish were content to give away a penalty with a professional foul that was awarded a yellow card for winger Topsy Ojo.
The second instance once again involved Bailey who crossed in the corner after a genuine three-quarters move, only to be brought back, ironically for a dubious forward pass spotted by the touch judge.
That was it for Gloucester, a case of too little too late.
In rugby you cannot do much without the ball. Irish realised this and accordingly did just enough to win.
Not pretty but an ugly win is worth far more than losing.
A damaging result for the Cherry and Whites in terms of their hopes for a top four league finish and with other powerful packs due at Kingsholm before the end of the season the forward battle will take on added significance.
Tough times ahead.

Kingsholm	GUINNESS PREMIERSHIP	Saturday 28 January 2006
	Irish call tune as Cherry and Whites play second fiddle
Try-less Gloucester miss out at Kingsholm
	Gloucester 9 London Irish 13

Irish call tune as Cherry and Whites play second fiddle