No stage-blood as far as we could tell, but plenty of drama. A grandstand finish that had seemed unlikely at half-time kept a healthy crowd in thrall, even if the quality of the action was pretty rough around the edges.
And the roughness did not stop there. No fake blood maybe, but no one said we were not allowed some good old-fashioned bad blood. We got it with bells on 10 minutes into the second half, as London Irish were chasing an 18-3 deficit. Ryan Lamb was hit late by Schalk Brits and gave him a little nudge by way of admonishment. Brits, being a hooker, nudged him back a little harder and Delon Armitage came racing in to nudge Brits harder yet. Then all hell broke loose. Around 20 of the 30 players on the field laid into each other for 30 seconds or so. Look out for it on YouTube.
There must have been blood. The self-righteous among us, so vocal recently, will no doubt condemn rugby union a bit more, but the rest of us were plenty amused by it. And the game went on.
Brits and Armitage saw yellow for their parts, which was when Irish started to make inroads into Saracens' lead. Lamb had kicked a penalty, but it was a pretty miserable debut for Irish's new signing – he missed four other kicks, all but one of them sitters.
Saracens were really up against it when a yellow card for Ernst Joubert had them down to 13. Their undermanned scrum could not control its own ball, and from the next one – awarded to Irish five metres out – George Stowers barged over to get Irish back to 18-11 with 20 to go. Lamb missed the conversion, obviously, and he was hauled off soon after.
Irish's dominance by then was total. Armitage did his best to miss a further penalty from in front with 10 to go, but the ball wobbled over and Irish kept coming. But their early-season looseness, which had been painfully obvious in the first half, came back to haunt them, and two further try-scoring passes were flung over the would-be recipient's head.
Saracens held out, but the wonder was that they needed to at all, so incoherent were the Exiles in the first half. They had come out as if last season's brilliance had happened to different people in another decade. Early season is often a difficult time for teams whose game plan relies on pace and precision. There were few signs of either from Irish here, particularly the precision.
It was to Saracens to show those virtues, particularly in the 34th minute, when they scored their brilliant second try, but they were hardly dazzling either. This was not proving to be the best way for rugby to put its troubles behind it.
Not that it was all bad. Glen Jackson was certainly giving the man opposite him a lesson in the arts of the fly-half. He was intimately involved in Saracens' good bits. He scored the first try, and most outrageous it was too. Sarries had just been awarded a kickable penalty, and Dave Pearson lectured the Irish, while Jackson waited with the ball under his arm, surely about to slot the kick. But the moment Pearson had finished his familiar spiel, Jackson tapped the ball and legged it to the corner for a try before anyone had realised what he was doing. Cheating? In the spirit of the game? It is hard to know these days.
The try stood, as did the touchline conversion, and Sarries had a 10-3 lead. There was no arguing with their next trick, though. Alex Goode ran back another loose Irish kick brilliantly and Chris Wyles was dragged down five metres short. Jackson's cross-kick was perfect, allowing Andy Saull time to let the ball bounce before he flopped on it. That was 18-3 at the break, and if anything it could have been worse for Irish.
They rediscovered some of that zest of theirs in the second half, as Saracens defended for their lives, conceding 10 penalties to two in that period. And the second of those was right at the death with Irish about five metres out from the line. The ball was belted into the stand with delight. The real pantomime villains were about to take to the stage.
