Aviva Prem End Of Season Reports: London Irish

So, barring the fat Lady who is limbering up for her appearance at Twickenham next weekend, the 2012/13 Aviva Premiership season is in the books and I thought it would be a good time to start to look at how each team has fared, whilst running the well-trodden 'School Report' thread through it. 

I'll look at each team in reverse finishing order, looking at what went well, what didn't, stand out players and areas for improvement for the coming season:

London Irish

Final Position: 9th
P: 22	W: 7	L: 14	D: 1	F: 459	A: 601	Pts: 35

Plus Marks:

A campaign to forget for the exiles, who to my eye find themselves a team in flux – they have demonstrated that they have the potential to challenge for at least a Heineken cup spot, but are actually facing at a future of looking over their shoulder nervously at the drop zone.

But we’re here to talk about positives, and I have endeavoured to find some: 

-          Tom Homer is my favourite Ginger rugby player.

-          Topsy Ojo has a terrific name

That’s about it.  I have obviously exaggerated for comic effect, but Irish and their fans will be only too aware that there has been precious little to shout about this year, and as we will cover later, the outlook isn’t too rosy either.

 

Detentions:

Irish’ try bonus points, losing bonus points and indeed total points were identical to Sale’s.  A backline containing the likes of Guy Armitage, Topsy Ojo and Jonathan Joseph really should not have managed only score an average of 1.7 tries a game. Oh how they seem to be missing Mike Catt.

 

I was scathing of Sale’s tendency to roll over and die when they sensed they were beating, and it is criticism I will repeat for Irish.  Of the games they lost, they lost them by an average of 18.5 points. 5 times they conceded 40+ points, you simply cannot put any sort of season together when being prone to blowouts like this.  In fact, I will be more withering in my criticism for Irish, because a glance at the squad list would indicate that they are not short of the gnarly, never say die type players who you would expect to put up more of a fight for 80 minutes than Sale’s attempt at assembling a North Western Galacticos.

 

Head Boy:

Say hello to Halani ‘Aulika, all 6 foot 1 and 19 and a half stones of Tongan Prop, who has quickly become a fans’ favourite at the Madjeski.  Four years ago, Halani had given up professional rugby in favour the security of a day job, and had ballooned to 24 stones – in an interview with The Rugby Paper, he gave an insight into the strict regime and diet needed to maintain such a figure:

“Four years ago, I was just lazy and had given up. I stopped doing anything, ate whatever I wanted and put on loads of weight. Breakfast? KFC. Lunch? KFC. Dinner? KFC.”

I know, I know, why would anyone want to stop living that dream?! But stop he did, and after some dietary reviews and via a stint in the ITM cup in New Zealand, he made his way with Tonga to the 2011 World cup before joining up with Irish, where he has been little short of a sensation, particularly in the loose.  His 6 Premiership tries making him his club’s top try scorer and finishing joint 5^th in the overall tables – not bad for a fat lad!

 

Predicted Grades Next Year:

It is not looking too rosy for Irish next year.  Quite frankly, the ‘players leaving’ and (so far) the ‘players coming in’ columns do not stack up favourably in terms of proven talent.  With the Likes of JJ, Corbisiero, Shingler and Garvey all exiting, as well as the confirmation of Jo Ansbro’s retirement following his neck break, the incoming players, whilst all solid looking and/or full of potential will initially struggle to fill these gaps. Unfortunately, If Irish do not start showing tangible signs of improvement soon, they will not be the last big names out of the door either – People like Tom homer and Marland Yarde will be looking to kick on to try and get in the international picture, and this is hard to do in a perennially struggling team.

The defence will need looking at as well, and I would be surprised and worried if a new co-ordinator does not pop up during the off season.