12th December 2004 - Beccs Youth at London Irish Match Day Clinic On Sunday the 12th a group of 40 predominately U13's and U14's attended a London Irish Match Day Clinic. A cold morning by any standards and an early 8am start and we were off to Reading and the first part of the day, the training with L.Irish coaches. The 2 hour session concentrated on decision making in the contact area in attack and defence and covered many aspects on lines of running, support play and how to secure ball for second phase. Once again we were delighted to meet up with ex-Beccehamian Mini Richard Thorpe, who was helping out with the coaching and is now a professional player with the Irish. The lads were put through their paces and were definitely blowing a bit at the end (and so were the 24 parents, but into their hands) and greatly appreciated the quality training. See photo below of the squad at Blue Coat School where the training took place. A quick change and we were off to the Reading Madjeski Stadium to watch the Irish play Pau in the second round second leg of the European Challenge Cup. Arriving a little later than expected we quickly got into the stadium to watch the sides warm up and had a quick bite to eat. Just prior to kick off we managed to have a photo opportunity with some of the injured Irish players (see below). At the start of the match L.Irish were 6 points down going into this game after the first and needed to win by more to progress through to the next round. A cracking game followed with the lead changing a number of times. Two very good tries were scored, the first by the L.Irish number 8 and the second was breathtaking breakout move from Pau as it came from a lineout 5M from their own line and was scored in the opposite corner. Both defences held and despite the Irish winning 19-16 it was not enough to see them through to the next round which was predominately due to Ludvic Mercier the French international fly-half who had a superb game, kicking points from everywhere and was eventually voted man of the match. After the match we visited the Craic bar and listened to some traditional Irish music whilst also warming up a bit and a couple of beers for the suffering parents. Back on the coach and back to Beccs. A great day had by all and hopefully the lads might have picked up a few new things along the way. More photo's - click here..