Manor welcomed high flying London Irish Wild Geese to the New Wilderness this week knowing that they were going to be in for a tough time against a side that were unbeaten this season and currently lying in second place in the table. Again Manor fielded a changed side giving two products of their youth section a taste of National League rugby, Charlie Wood starting the game at centre and Tom O’Connor on the bench.

With Manor kicking off it was soon apparent that the Irish were a quality side as they used their hard running forwards and slick backline to good effect. The first five minutes of play were all in and around Manors 22 and after a series of powerful drives, Irish spun the ball along the line where an overlap had been worked to put their winger in at the corner for the first try of the match. The touchline conversion was successful and Manor were behind 0-7.

From the restart Manor harried the Irish and turned the ball over in midfield, this allowed Elliott Brown to kick ahead and as Manor players gave chase the ball went into touch. Manor contested the Irish throw and Jack Tovey stole the ball, this allowed the Manor backline an opportunity to attack, but this was met by a solid defensive wall, Manor forwards then joined in and drove the ball on and towards the line, only for their good work to be ruined by a penalty at the breakdown allowing Irish to clear up field.

Play now settled in the middle of the park with Manor defending well against the Irish play and eventually won a penalty when the Irish were penalised for not releasing in the tackle. Brown took the shot at goal from 30 meters out, but the ball went wide of the posts. After 10 minutes Manor still trailed 0-7.

Manor continued to attack, but were stopped by the Irish‘s solid defence, and when given the opportunity the visitors soon turned defence into attack taking play to within 10 meters of Manors line, here at the breakdown Paul Pritchard fell foul of the referees whistle and was sent to the sin bin for his troubles. Irish took the easy three points on offer extending their lead to 0-10.

Undeterred Manor attacked the restart winning a scrum and then a penalty. Brown took a quick tap and made 15 meters before spinning out a long pass to Tom Bateman on the wing, he showed his pace by outsprinting three defenders and raced towards the line where he was eventually brought down 5 meters short, the ball was quickly recycled to the supporting Manor forwards but as they crossed the line, the ball was knocked on and Manor had failed to capitalise on a certain try scoring opportunity.

Manor continued to have the better of the play inside Iris’s half, but against the run of play at a Manor scrum the ball shot out of the side, the Irish scrum half was quickest to react, scooping up the ball and setting off along the touchline showing great speed to run half the length of the pitch to score in the corner despite an excellent last ditch tackle by Nick Horton who he felt that had knocked the player into touch. The ref awarded the try though and with the difficult touchline conversion successful the score moved on to 0-17.

With the half coming to a close Irish again stretched Manors defence with good lines of running from their backline which created another overlap for their winger to score in the corner. With the conversion missed and despite Manor attacking from the restart and putting pressure on the Irish defence, the half came to a close with Manor trailing 0-22.

The second half didn’t start too well for the home side as despite some early pressure Manor gave away a number of penalties that allowed Irish to move quickly into Manors 22. Here from a lineout the Irish No8 set up a driving maul but dropped the ball in the act of scoring, but Manor could not clear the danger and were soon back down to 14 players when Rhys Davis-Horne came in at the side of a ruck and was yellow carded. Irish immediately took advantage of their extra man when they opted for a scrum which gave their No8 the opportunity to pick and drive over the line for another try which was converted, 0-29. Jack Tovey now left the field injured giving Tom O’Connor his first team debut.

Irish continued to boss the game with Manor consigned to a rear guard action, defending the Irish attacks inside their 22, eventually conceding another try as the Irish prop barged over the line from close range. With the conversion successful Irish now led 0-36 after 15 minutes of the second half.

Manor didn’t let their heads drop and set up a series of attacks, but were guilty of making basic error or taking the wrong attacking options which blunted their attacking threat. It was the Irish though who were more clinical and after absorbing Manors attacks turned defence into attack with a free flowing attacking from inside their half that eventually worked an overlap making space for their centre to score in the corner. With the conversion missed the Irish had increased their lead to 0-41.

It was in fact Manor who created the next scoring opportunity when an attack instigated by Horton saw the ball reach Reece Reed just outside Irish’s 22, he took the attack forward then spun the ball out wide to Harry Tustanowsky on the wing, he beat his man and as he reach the line was brought down a meter short, he then stretched out to place the ball over the line, but had it knocked out of his grasp and another scoring opportunity was missed after 30 minutes.

During the last 10 minutes of play Irish increased the score line by scoring another two converted try’s, the final one being with the last play of the match, giving them a comfortable 0-55 victory.

Manor had come up against a side that should be in contention for promotion come the end of the season. The result was disappointing in as much it is the first time since October 2013 that Manor had failed to register any points in a match. They did create scoring opportunities and at this level they must take those on offer, although it would not have change the end result in this match, it would have shown some reward for Manors efforts.

Next week Manor travel to Chichester hoping that they will have more players available for selection after recovering from their injuries. Whilst it is not easy to win away at Chichester, as Manor know from their playoff defeat two season ago, it is hoped that they can come away with some reward that will reflect the effort put in by all of the players so far this season.