Promise for Exiles despite loss

London Irish, under the tutelage of new Head Coach Tom Coventry, succumbed to a 16 - 28 loss in their opening game of the season versus Leicester Tigers.

In a game where Leicester’s Tommy Bell took the headlines as he kicked 23 points, it was London Irish who were left ruing missed opportunities.

Jebb Sinclair, returning from international duty at the Rugby World Cup, crossed for the Exiles in the first half on the back of a powerful driving maul as the momentum changed leaving the score at 10-13 following an earlier Peter Betham interception try for the visitors with Chris Noakes and Bell trading blows with the boot.

Irish looked to crash their way over from short range just before halftime, with Luke Narraway crossing only for the try to be disallowed following a TMO referral. Sinclair also almost crossed for his second, but good cover defence from the Tigers forced the Canadian into touch inches from the line.

In the second half it was again the Exiles who came the closest to crossing the try line. Eoin Griffin stormed away form 20 metres only for the Tigers to again scramble back and hold him up over the line.

“It was too sloppy really,” said Tom Coventry after the game.

“It would have been nice to win it but at the end of the day we weren’t clinical enough, in some vital areas of the game and at vital times we let ourselves down.

‘We were only a couple of scores away from getting in front, we dropped one just before half time and got knocked into touch in the far corner and then Eoin Griffin coming up short when one more step and he would have probably got the ball down.

“It could have been a different result for us we had got those over the line”.

Despite the result, there were a lot of positives from London Irish, with Coventry picking out his sides work at the breakdown as a particular example.

“I thought we picked our moments well”, he continued. “At various times we were able to get people over the ball and got good results.

On his side’s try, which came from a powerful driving maul, Coventry said; “that was a pleasing aspect of the game, those moments when you are five metres out and you need to score, we took those opportunities pretty well today so it was a positive part of our match’.