London Irish beat Harlequins 5-35 to keep their hopes alive

Harlequins 5 - 35 London Irish, Twickenham Stoop

A dominant performance from London Irish saw them keep their slim hope of avoiding a relegation alive with a 5-35 win over Harlequins in their Aviva Premiership face-off at Twickenham Stoop on Saturday.

The win meant London Irish have narrowed down the gap with 11th placed Worcester Warriors to nine points as their maintain their slim hope of avoiding a relegation from the top flight.

Piet van Zyl set the tone for London Irish with back to back tries coming in the first quarter. The first one in the 13th minute was set up by Tow Fowlie, who breached Harlequins defence and offloaded to van Zyl while the second that came in the 21st minute when James Marshall's cross-kick found Alex Lewington, who sent the scrum-half over the line for the second time in the game.

The lead further increased for the visitors when Max Northcote-Green was awarded a try in the 29th minute after consultation with TMO while Tommy Bell slotted two conversions and a penalty as London Irish scored 22 unanswered points in the first half.

Bell further extended London Irish's lead to 25 points with a penalty goal at the start of the second half and finally Harlequins opened their account with a touchdown from Jack Clifford in the 51st minute but unfortunately for them that remained the only points in the game.

Harlequins suffered a double setback when Danny Care and Charlie Matthews were sin-binned in the 61st and 69th minutes respectively but a try from Tom Fowlie (61') and a conversion and a penalty goal from Bell saw the Exiles completed a 30 point victory.