London Irish cut through Worcester with ease

Mar 16 2009 by Brian Dick, Birmingham Post

GUINNESS PREMIERSHIP: London Irish 38 Worcester Warriors 17

Dismal Worcester put the berks in Royal Berkshire yesterday as they flopped to yet another embarrassing Premiership defeat.

Mike Ruddock’s men have now lost eight of their last nine league matches and could not produce much of an argument to counter the suggestion that on current performance levels they are the worst team in the top flight.

Yes Bristol are below them and are almost certain to be relegated but there is at least a flicker of fight in the men from the Memorial Ground that their Sixways counterparts would do well to note.

In recent matches Worcester have been a guileless and error-prone outfit and so it was once more at the Madejski Stadium.

Not once did they threaten to win this match and nor should they have after being so sloppy when they didn’t have the ball and so short on confidence when they did.

Quite simply their leaders aren’t leading. Pat Sanderson seems to be intent on putting in big individual performances rather than thinking as a captain, Rico Gear’s brief flirtation with good form has ended in an amicable split and there is no one of substance in the pack to remind the veterans of how good an octet they used to be.

Of that group of senior players only poor old Chris Latham can consider himself exempt from criticism, how frustrating it must for the Wallaby legend to have swapped the land of plenty for the barren wastelands of Warriors’ full back berth.

The first ten minuets was as poor as anything Worcester have ever produced in the Premiership.

It took them all of 16 seconds to concede a penalty – as an isolated Latham was gobbled up by the Irish kick chase, and only slightly longer to fall behind. Tom Homer accepted the simplest of three points in front of the posts.

Seven minutes later they infringed again after Adam Thompstone had made good ground down the right wing.

Balls don’t usually pop out of rucks at random angles without illicit intervention. The fact it was straight in front of the visitors’ posts told referee Tim Wigglesworth everything he needed to know about the culprit. Homer made it 6-0.

Willie Walker booted the resulting kick off dead, Warriors infringed at the scrum and before anyone had time to say ‘Let’s steady the ship’, they were on the retreat once again.

Irish sent their heavy artillery up the middle and created space out wide. Mike Catt spotted it and arrowed a kick behind Marcel Garvey.

The wing ambled back but instead of gathering he slid over the top of the ball and allowed Seilala Mapusua to flop over for the easiest try he’ll ever score. Courtesy of a quite idiotic sequence of events Worcester were 11 points down in even time and staring a humiliating defeat in the face.

However their forwards began to take more responsibility for ball-carrying. Darren Morris popped up on halfway in support of Gear only for his agoraphobia to take hold.

Then miracle of miracles, a cohesive attack that produced a try. Aleki Lutui took Garvey’s madcap off-load and cut off the wing to set up a promising position.

Morris rumbled through the fringes, Sanderson appeared on his shoulder and fed Greg Rawlinson for the former All Black to gallop clear. Walker’s conversion made it 11-7 on the half hour. It was a rare highlight.

What Worcester then needed was a spell of relative calm, what they got was another home try as Richard Thorpe bashed through Sanderson from close range.

Homer converted although Walker made it 18-10 with a late penalty.

If the first half was bad, the second was even more as the play-off hopefuls grabbed three more tries – the first within six minutes of the restart.

Homer had added another three points by the time Paul Hodgson sniped through a lineout close to the Worcester line and flipped up for loosehead Clarke Dermody to romp over.

Three minutes later the bonus point was in the bag as Walker failed to clear and was turned over in the 22.

Catt took possession and put Chris Hala’ufia between Morris and Will Bowley to give Homer an easy conversion.

And five minutes from the end former Solihull School student James Hudson barged over by the flag.

All Worcester could muster in response was a charge down try from Walker and even then it altered neither the result nor the momentum. Ruddock’s side are in a hole.

LONDON IRISH: Homer; Thompstone, Seveali’i, Mapasua, Tagicakibau; Catt (Hickey, 70), Hodgson (Lalanne, 75); Dermody, Coetzee (Buckland, 55), Skuse (Lea’aetoa 38-40, 60), Hudson, Johnson (Roche, 62), Thorpe, Danahar, Hala’ufia (Armitage, 60). Replacement: Fisher
WORCESTER: Latham; Gear (Benjamin, 70), Luscombe, Rasmussen, Garvey (Benjamin, 33-40); Powell (Arr, 66); Mullan, Lutui (Fortey, 59), Morris (Black, 59), Rawlinson (Kitchener, 70), Bowley, Talei, Sanderson (Collins, 50), Horstmann. Replacement: Carlisle.
Referee: Tim Wigglesworth (RFU).