By Shaun Wren
London Irish 15 Leicester Tigers 20
It was another
unconvincing win by the Leicester Tigers as it marked a bad weekend
for Irish rugby fans in London.
Things could have been
so different if James O’Connor had been able to score all seven of
his penalty kicks, it would have given Irish 21 points. Not to
mention the two controversial Leicester Tries!
The game started so
well with less than a minute into the game, London Irish were already
three points up from the boot of O’Connor.
However, after
Leicester found a way into the game, Irish conceded a penalty in
their own 22. The Tigers put on the pressure in the scrum pushing
the Irish pack back and with Louis Deacon seeming to be in an offside
position, it opened a gap for Ben Youngs to score in the corner.
But the question is
should it have been a try?
After O’Connor missed
a penalty and the chance to give Irish the lead and with the Tigers
continuously conceding penalties, the Australian fullback wasn’t
going to miss the chance of giving his side the chance to regain the
lead, converting two penalty kicks to put Irish 9-5 ahead.
Then six minutes from
half time Leicester scored their second controversial try as a
driving maul pressured the home side back, enabling Leicester’s
tight head prop Logovi’I Mulipola to crash the ball over the line.
However, with referee JP Doyle going to the TMO, it was clear to see
the ball was held up but the referee gave the try anyway.
With Owen Williams
missing his second conversion Tigers had a one point lead.
Before both sides went
off for half time London Irish centre Eamonn Sheridan was sin binned
for taking out Leicester fullback Matthew Tait.
The Tigers started the
second half in the best way possible, as outside centre Vereniki
Goneva used his clever footwork to get past the Irish defence.
Williams finally scored a conversion to give the current champions a
9-17 lead.
It wasn’t long for
the fly-half to get on the score sheet again as he kicked a penalty
to extend Leicester’s lead to 11 points.
O’Connor’s kicking
was still hit and miss as he missed the chance to close the gap on
the 56th minute but was able to put three points on the
board in the 61st minute.
When replacement number
eight Thomas Waldrom got sin binned, Irish had the chance to take
control of the game but the 23 year old fullback missed his kick
again!
With 10 minutes to go,
Irish took the chance to close the gap to five and switching kicker
fly-half Ian Humphreys made it 15-20.
Then London Irish came
so close to clinching the win as they were within metres of the
Leicester try line but unfortunately Irish knocked the ball on and
even though they had a good scrum, the Tigers held on for another
close win.