Now I have got that off my chest, on to the game.

The East Stand were graced with the presence of guest drummers Richard Skuse, Clarke Dermody and Dan Murphy. The bemused face of poor Clarke will be with me for some time as he sat there banging the drum! Credit to them all, they entered into the spirit and deserve medals for sitting through the experience with their jackets on in that heat.

My notes are riddled with “aerial ping pong” and “penalty at the ruck” and in the end I got fed up, gave up the ghost and only made note of the scores.

I did however note that Bath’s Butch James had that same kicking boots on as he had last week and mercifully for him was withdrawn from kicking duties after missing a couple of very easy kicks. He did however notch up the first score for Bath with a nice run, which broke through the LI defence on our line. LI 0 Bath 5 (unsurprisingly, he missed the conversion).

18th minute – Penalty Bath in front of posts. LI 0 Bath 8

23rd minute- Penalty Bath 30m out, hugging the touchline – LI 0 Bath 11

26th minute- penalty Bath – he misses

28th minute – penalty Bath – LI 0 Bath 14

30th minute – Bath number 13 is sent for 10 minutes rest for being a naughty boy.

This pretty much describes most of the match. We gave away loads of penalties at the ruck for going off our feet. However Bath were doing the same but did not seem to be penalised in the same way and I have to admit to being a tad confused.

At this point the fourth official Ashley Rowden came on to have a brief chat with Mr Pearson but at this point it was not clear why.

37th minute – Try London Irish in the far north west corner by Alex Corbisiero. Eoghan Hickey misses the conversion – LI 5 Bath 14.

The Ref chat now becomes clear as Ashley takes over from Mr Pearson. One wag suggested that Mr Pearson had dislocated his shoulder from overuse of his arm giving penalties!

Last hurrah of the half is a penalty to Bath for yet another offence in the ruck – Half time score LI 5 Bath 17.

During the half time interval Andrew Coppel and Bob Casey presented our former Director of Rugby, Brian Smith, with a framed shirt and we all had the opportunity to say goodbye properly. London Irish have an insider in the England coaching set up now and let us hope that this leads to more recognition for our players who have been overlooked up to now just because they play for an unfashionable club.

The second half was more or less the same as the first, lots of penalties and a seemingly never ending game of ping pong.

4th minute – penalty LI – LI8 Bath 17

24th minute – penalty LI Eoghan gets it, LI 11 Bath 17

The retirement of Alex Corbisiero (he hobbled off) in the 29th minute meant that it was uncontested scrums as he was replaced by John Fisher (not a front rower!) 37th minute – Elvis announces his arrival by scoring his first try for London Irish. Apparently the conversion is missed although certain members of the crowd (most notably those behind the posts) think it went over. LI 16 Bath 17. Is it possible that we are to see a remarkable come back and secure a sneaky win?

Alas it was not to be – fairy tales do not always have a happy ending and sadly we gave away yet another penalty in front of our posts and the final score was LI 16 Bath 20.

We lost this game in the first twenty minutes of the first half and whilst we should applaud the players for a spirited come back I can’t help but feel a little frustrated as we could and should have won this one.

I also feel a little cheated in that I, together with all the people in that stadium, paid good money to see a game of rugby. Now before you all jump down my throat at that statement, it was not meant in any way as a critisism of the players on the park or the coaches sitting in the stand/dug out etc. It is quite firmly pointed at said idiots in far, far away land who have fiddled and messed with a perfectly good game and turned it in to something that just is not Rugby Union.

Oh and by the way Seilala Mapusua was given man of the match and I cannot disagree with that – he was everywhere and made some brilliant breaking runs. A mention too for Steffon Armitage who was like a little cannon ball rolling through the Bath players in his own inimitable way.

substitutions – all second half

4th minute Peter Hewat off (hurt ankle) and Elvis enters the building!

19th minute David Paice off and Danni Coetzee on, Peter Richards off and Paul Hodgson on

21st minute Faan Rautenbach off and Tonga Lea’aetoa on

29th minute Alex Corbisiero hobbles off to be replace by Jon Fisher

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