Toby Booth's quandary.

London Irish are renowned for their hospitality and the craic and the compulsory pint of the black stuff.

But something's going wrong on the park:

Discipline

HEC:

http://www.statbunker.com/rugby/btb/index.php?PL=competition&CompID=382&statType=discipline

Side/YCs/RCs/total

London Irish 1 1 2
Llanelli 1 - 1
Gloucester 1 - 1
Castres 1 - 1
Racing CF 1 - 1
Benetton Treviso 1 - 1
Saracens 1 - 1

Jeff

http://www.statbunker.com/rugby/btb/index.php?PL=competition&CompID=389&statType=discipline

Side/YCs/RCs/total

London Irish 4 - 4
Northampton Saints 3 - 3
Gloucester 3 - 3
Sale Sharks 2 - 2
Saracens 2 - 2
Newcastle Falcons 2 - 2
London Wasps 2 - 2
Harlequins 2 - 2
Exeter 1 - 1
Worcester 1 - 1

And underlying this is the fact LI have had two men (Armitage and Hape) banned by the citing committee for high tackles and no doubt yet another (Shingler) for a tip next week.

It it an unfortunate set of freak circumstances, or a fundamental coaching problem or what?

I do not think that London Irish are a particularly undisciplined team. At this stage of the season it can be easy to find patterns such as this. Delon Armitage has had a problem in the last 12 months however.

The biggest problem with indiscipline is once a team starts to get on the "bad" side of the system, they gain a reputation and suffer accordingly.

For me, Booth's biggest problem is that he may have run out of time as LI coach. He often seems clueless when trying to explain what has gone wrong - which since the '09 Premiership final sems to be more often than not.

I like Booth. But surely he must emphasise on his players the absolute minimum to be careful in the tackle before each and every game that they are under the microscope.

Warburton I can believe, as a youngster did not know the Laws of the tackle fully. But surely every professional coach will have re-emphasised to their players since then.

I think its only Armitage's cards which separate London Irish from the other teams in these stats. And he has had issues in the past. So, I don't think the team has a habit or culture if indiscipline.

I think it is a bit of a shame about Armitage. When he and his brother came on the scene, I thought this was a good thing and they seemed good role models to the minority community. I hope Delon can get away from the cards in the future.

Three of LI's cards came out of tackles. Two - probably three - have / will result in citings and bans.

I fully support the Armitages (and the likes of the Lawes for that matter) in terms of the minority community, but that is not the issue

Mornin' Port,
It was really as a postscript to my comment that I said I think its a shame that someone who could be a good example has a poor disciplinary record. I didn't mean to infer that was your point.

Statistically, I think we need to season to progress so we have more matches to make a bigger set of data. Still not convinced there is an issue at London Irish. But does merit watching. What I think might help make your point about discipline, at least to me, would be total number of penalties in addition to the cards.

The vast majority of high tackles are clumsy rather than malicious. Looking at the way LI play they are not trying to push the boundaries but are making the sorts of mistakes that happen in a high speed contact sport.

I agree.

So many high tackles are unintentional - which is why I have for at least two (three?) years being campaigning for an armpit level legal tackle height.