LONDON IRISH WILL make the 26-mile cross-city journey on Saturday to take on London Welsh in a game that could make or break their season.
The Exiles suffered their seventh loss of the season on Sunday as Exeter Chiefs visited the Madejski Stadium and left with four points.
Chiefs, featuring Tom Hayes and Gareth Steenson – scorer of 17 points – in their line-up, shot into a 21-3 lead after just 20 minutes before Irish battled back.
An Ian Humphreys penalty on 49 minutes saw the home side hit the front for the first time but two Steenson penalties settled the affair.
Irish, who started Brian Blaney at hooker, are now without a league win since the beginning of October.
No excuses
Humphreys, who kicked 13 points in the loss, told TheScore.ie that costly lapses are spoiling much of the team’s best work.
He said, “It was a funny one. They got off to a flyer and I was thinking ‘Jeepers, here we go’ but we fought back very well.
Credit to Exeter, they pulled away again and deserved the win. There are still positives to take from the game. We just have to build on them and eradicate the mistakes.
“We’re still scoring lots of points, we just have to tighten up our defence.”
Former Ulster player Steenson, said Humphreys, ‘ran the show at 10′ for the Chiefs.
“They are a hard-working team,” he added. “We knew that they did the basics well but they only had a couple of try scoring chances and took them.”
Elsewhere in the Premiership
Bath upset league leaders Harlequins, coached by Conor O’Shea, at The Rec on Friday night but Mark McCall’s Saracens could not take advantage as they lost 12-3 to Worcester Warriors.
Sarries mix of old-stagers and promising starlets were no match for Worcester and their impressive pack that featured John Andress and Neil Best.
Sale Sharks’ awful run of form continued when they lost 29-3 to Gloucester at Kingsholm.
Shane Monahan lined up well with Rob Cook and Charlie Sharples in the back three for Gloucester while Dan Murphy gave Sharks’ Tony Buckley a tough examination at scrum time.
Northampton Saints beat London Welsh 23-16 while Niall Morris was on the losing Leicester Tigers side away to Wasps. Tigers club captain Geordan Murphy did not feature off the bench.
Also on Sunday, Jeremy Davidson’s Aurillac defeated Carcassonne 20-15 to continue their fine run of form in France’s Pro D2.
