Irish vs Saints - 5.30pm Saturday

[Puja]

London Irish: Loader; Cinti, van Rensburg, Jennings, Hassell-Collins; Jackson, O'Sullivan; Fischetti, Creevy, Hoskins; Ratuniyarawa, Simmons; Rogerson (c), Pearson, Fa'aso'o.

Replacements: Willemse, Haffar, Chawatama, Munga, Gonzalez, Cunningham-South, Powell, Arundell.



15 George Furbank
14 James Ramm
13 Fraser Dingwall
12 Rory Hutchinson
11 Tommy Freeman
10 Fin Smith
9 Alex Mitchell

1 Alex Waller – 350th Saints appearance
2 Robbie Smith
3 Trevor Davison – Northampton Saints debut
4 David Ribbans
5 Alex Moon
6 Lukhan Salakaia-Loto
7 Lewis Ludlam (c)
8 Juarno Augustus

Replacements:
16 Tom Cruse
17 Ethan Waller
18 Paul Hill
19 Angus Scott-Young
20 Sam Graham
21 Tom James
22 Tom Litchfield
23 Tom Collins

Not considered for selection:
Emmanuel Iyogun, Courtney Lawes, Matt Proctor and Ollie Sleightholme.

International duty:
Sam Matavesi (Navy).

[Epaminondas Pules]

Should be a fun game.

[Banquo]

Alex Coles has dropped down the rankings- shame for him.

[Puja]

Fun game. Pearson was excellent - very powerful and dynamic in his carries. Faded a bit towards the end, but understandable given the work he'd put in.

Arundell potentially needs someone to support him rn. It's got to be difficult coming in with this much expectation on you. The crowd roar when he came off the bench was almost louder than for the scores and it clearly affected him - he engaged in a touch of showboating with an unnecessary dive for a score which ended with the ball being knocked on short of the line. Hopefully Irish are looking after him.

Puja

[Adam_P]

Thankfully I missed this as I was on a plane - followed along on twitter and it sounds like more of the same awful defence and discipline from Saints. If a team that looks that strong on paper can't get up for a fixture as critical for the season as today, there is not much hope. Sounds like we were very passive.

Pearson must be odds on to be a bolter for the WC. Saw a clip of his early try and I think I counted 5 Saints defenders falling at his feet. Pathetic stuff.

[FKAS]

It was very much the same Saints story of indiscipline and non-existent defence. Some big names really failed to deliver.

LI played their swashbuckling style and it worked for them. Ben Loader and Tom Pearson the standouts. Van Rensburg still the most underrated centre in the league.

[stepsider]

Fun game. Pearson was excellent - very powerful and dynamic in his carries. Faded a bit towards the end, but understandable given the work he'd put in.

Arundell potentially needs someone to support him rn. It's got to be difficult coming in with this much expectation on you. The crowd roar when he came off the bench was almost louder than for the scores and it clearly affected him - he engaged in a touch of showboating with an unnecessary dive for a score which ended with the ball being knocked on short of the line. Hopefully Irish are looking after him.

Puja

He just needs to be careful about grounding the ball. But we all make mistakes - lots of players have made similar errors - the key is learning from them and not doing them again.

[rjjb]

Fun game. Pearson was excellent - very powerful and dynamic in his carries. Faded a bit towards the end, but understandable given the work he'd put in.

Arundell potentially needs someone to support him rn. It's got to be difficult coming in with this much expectation on you. The crowd roar when he came off the bench was almost louder than for the scores and it clearly affected him - he engaged in a touch of showboating with an unnecessary dive for a score which ended with the ball being knocked on short of the line. Hopefully Irish are looking after him.

Puja

Not particularly convinced it was showboating. Someone (Ramm?) was coming across in defence & it looked to me that he just tried to slide in, but went too early.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Fun game. Pearson was excellent - very powerful and dynamic in his carries. Faded a bit towards the end, but understandable given the work he'd put in.

Arundell potentially needs someone to support him rn. It's got to be difficult coming in with this much expectation on you. The crowd roar when he came off the bench was almost louder than for the scores and it clearly affected him - he engaged in a touch of showboating with an unnecessary dive for a score which ended with the ball being knocked on short of the line. Hopefully Irish are looking after him.

Puja

Not particularly convinced it was showboating. Someone (Ramm?) was coming across in defence & it looked to me that he just tried to slide in, but went too early.

Yeah he dived which was the right thing to do, but the ground was solid, so rather than slide he bounced somewhat. One of those things. It certainly wasn’t showboating.

[Puja]

Fun game. Pearson was excellent - very powerful and dynamic in his carries. Faded a bit towards the end, but understandable given the work he'd put in.

Arundell potentially needs someone to support him rn. It's got to be difficult coming in with this much expectation on you. The crowd roar when he came off the bench was almost louder than for the scores and it clearly affected him - he engaged in a touch of showboating with an unnecessary dive for a score which ended with the ball being knocked on short of the line. Hopefully Irish are looking after him.

Puja

Not particularly convinced it was showboating. Someone (Ramm?) was coming across in defence & it looked to me that he just tried to slide in, but went too early.

Yeah he dived which was the right thing to do, but the ground was solid, so rather than slide he bounced somewhat. One of those things. It certainly wasn’t showboating.

No, sorry, the dive was very unnecessary. The cover was nowhere near and was coming to stop him going under the posts, not to stop him scoring. Arundell actually slows down to a saunter for his last few strides, because he's got so much time that he doesn't need to sprint for the corner.

I like him a lot and want to see the best in him like everyone else, but that is definitely a "lesson to be learned about being too casual" rather than an "unavoidable situation and just one of those things".

Puja

[Mikey Brown]

Oof. That’s pretty amateurish.

I understand he looks to have exceptional potential but I’m still a bit unsure about him having an England spot without having to really fight for it. It feels more like a lack of confidence in our ability to create anything than it does a vote of confidence in a youngster who is ready to step up.

Not that any of that is his fault. I just hope this pressure is good for him.

[fivepointer]

Its poor play. He got that wrong. Everyone can make a mistake.
We have seen this lad do some pretty exceptional things, so i'm not going to get too hung up when he fouls up as long as its not repeated!

[Puja]

Oof. That’s pretty amateurish.

I understand he looks to have exceptional potential but I’m still a bit unsure about him having an England spot without having to really fight for it. It feels more like a lack of confidence in our ability to create anything than it does a vote of confidence in a youngster who is ready to step up.

Not that any of that is his fault. I just hope this pressure is good for him.

Bang on. He could be a once-in-a-generation talent and I'm praying that we're not badly mismanaging him, by dumping him in at the deep end and heaping all this pressure on him, because we're desperate to have him now.

Puja