Second December red card costs London Irish against Worcester
Another December red card cost London Irish as Worcester fly-half Duncan Weir scored 13 points as Warriors picked up four valuable Gallagher Premiership points.
Weir was on the receiving end of a head-high tackle from Motu Matu’u, which earned the hooker a red card after only 34 minutes and left his side to play the whole of the second half a man short for the second away league fixture in a row.
Prop Ollie Hoskins was the offender at Bristol earlier this month when Irish went on to secure a 27-27 draw, but they could not repeat that remarkable feat against Irish on Saturday.
Weir scored a try for Worcester and kicked two penalties and a conversion. Jono Lance was the other Warriors scorer with a try and conversion, while Stephen Myler responded with two penalties for the visitors.
Worcester, anxious to impress the first sell-out crowd at Sixways since April 2018, began strongly by enjoying an extended period of pressure.
Francois Hougaard and Cornell Du Preez were the protagonists in testing the Irish defence and the hosts looked to have taken the lead in the sixth minute when Tom Howe crashed over, but TMO replays showed that the wing had lost possession before grounding the ball.
Warriors continued to have the better of the opening period but it was Irish who were first on the scoreboard when Myler kicked a 40-metre penalty.
A poor kick from full-back Alivereti Veitokani surrendered possession to give Warriors a platform in the opposition 22, and from there the space was created for Weir to score the opening try.
Weir converted before adding two penalties in quick succession as his side continued their first-half dominance.
A couple of attempted clearances by Hougaard were charged down to raise Irish hopes, but these soon faded when prop Allan Dell was yellow-carded for charging dangerously into a ruck before Matu’u was sent off.
Weir received treatment before kicking for the corner as Warriors elected not take an easy three points, but it did not pay dividends and the score remained at 13-3 as the interval arrived.
After the restart, Myler kicked a second penalty before Weir was replaced by Lance with 30 minutes remaining as the home side struggled to break down a stubborn Irish defence.
The visitors held out until the 59th minute before Hougaard broke blind and combined cleverly with Perry Humphreys to provide Lance with an easy run-in.
Worcester continued to make hard work of enforcing their superior numbers and with 11 minutes remaining, they too went down to 14 when Chris Pennell was sin-binned for a high tackle on Tom Stephenson, but it mattered little as the game meandered to its conclusion.
Press Association
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Comments on RugbyPass
I am really looking forward to Leigh Halfpenny playing his first Super rugby game for the Crusaders Playing a long side his former Welsh and Scarlets team mate Johnny McNicoll.Johnny has been playing great, back in a Crusaders jersey.The attack has strengthened big time. Also looking forward to David Havili at 10. David is a class act, it also allows Dallas McLeod to remain at 12. A good thing.
1 Go to commentsIf he had stopped insisting on playing in the backrow, instead of wing, where everyone told him he should, he would have been a Bok years ago….
11 Go to comments‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
19 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
16 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
16 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
84 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to comments