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Sunday Premiership reaction

Sunday 30th November 2008

To the top: Clarke Dermody leads from the front in London Irish's 'lucky' win

London Irish claimed top spot in the Guinness Premiership after their 18-13 victory over Bristol on Sunday, but Head Coach Toby Booth admitted it was a game they should have lost.

Bristol, rock-bottom of the league with only one win this season, came within a whisker of making it two and drawing level with relegation rivals Newcastle.

They led 13-11 after centre Luke Eves went over for a try, having trailed 11-0 from two Peter Hewat penalties and a Sailosi Tagicakibau touchdown.

But an interception by former England fly-half Shane Geraghty on halfway sealed the Irish win and their top spot.

"It feels like a bit of a loss, to be honest. All credit to Bristol, they were very good," said Booth.

"In the second half, every time we got to the halfway line, we gave the ball back. We certainly didn't make life easy for ourselves and we probably needed to be more clinical in the first half. Then the whole thing would have been a different game.

"Rugby is a simple game. If you control the ball, it is simple. You push the balls into the corner and the people who do that better and control the game are often the ones that come out on top.

"They scored first straight after half-time and we said the first score then would be vital and, as a result, we let them in the game. Fair play to them, they are very committed.

"But I do want our boys to kick on and achieve the best they can."

It is the first time that London Irish have headed the Premiership since October 1999, a time when Booth was still working on his education.

"I was just finishing a Masters (degree) at St Mary's University. I studied physiology, which has been a lot of use to me!"

Richard Hill, meanwhile, agreed that his club should have won but he is happy to have taken a losing bonus point off the Exiles and thinks Bristol are "getting better".

"Normally, I would say the better team won but, on this occasion, we deserved to win that and I feel very sorry for the players, they put a lot of effort into that second half, particularly," said Hill.

"They had it well under control and the only time that Irish actually got the ball is when we gave it to them on a plate. It happens but it is our own fault.

"We are bitterly disappointed and sometimes you wonder what you have got to do to win a game. Lady Luck is probably not on our side at the moment but we are partly responsible for that ourselves.

"We will keep battling away and, hopefully, we will get those little narrow wins we need.

"At 11-0, you could almost sense that Irish thought that was not enough. At half-time, all the players thought it was achievable to peg back that lead. The crowd got behind us and, really, there was only one team in it then.

"And we had the game under control until that interception try which was a bit cruel when you see a team which are top of the league now and we dominated them for 40 minutes."

Meanwhile, Harlequins chief Dean Richards has warned England players Danny Care, Ugo Monye and Nick Easter they face stiff competition for their places following the 21-14 victory which prevented Bath from returning to the top of the Guinness Premiership.

Veteran former England scrum-half Andy Gomarsall's superb inside pass opened up the Bath defence for prop Ceri Jones to score the match-winning try.

"Andy played very well. He pulled it out of the bag," said Richards.

"Seb Stegmann also played well and Tom Guest is playing better than ever so it's not easy. The guys who are coming back will have to perform because the guys who are there are playing well."

Quins head into back-to-back Heineken Cup clashes against French giants Stade Francais, starting in Paris next Saturday.

"Selection hasn't been made yet," instisted Richards.

"I was disappointed in the way we let in their try and we'll look at that and pick out the things we've got to work on.

"But I was comfortable with the fact that we won against a side that was around the top and playing some good quality rugby.

"It was an intense battle. It was always one of those games which would come down to the last few minutes."

Bath's Head Coach Steve Meehan felt his side didn't dominate in order to win back their number one spot in the Guinness Premiership table.

"Harlequins played some good field rugby but we never gave ourselves the opportunity to force our dominance on the game," he said.

"The penalty count was 14-7 or something like that and when it's that one-sided it's difficult to get any momentum into your game and then we coughed up the ball too often and too early in our attacking play.

"If we had been able to build on some things we could have come away with the win.

"I'm not going to blame players for the effort they put in - I thought the effort was fantastic right through to the 80 minutes - but there were some confusing decisions out there.

"I am at a loss to explain some of the things which went against us so there will certainly be some interesting conversations take place between ourselves and those that are in charge this week."

Centre Jordan Turner-Hall and Welsh prop Jones struck the crucial blows after number eight Daniel Browne broke the deadlock with the opening try for Bath in the 50th minute.

Elsewhere, Saracens boss Eddie Jones admitted he was looking to lure South Africa's World Cup-winning coach Jake White back to the club in the new year after his week-long consultancy ended in a 23-6 victory over Worcester.

White paid special attention to a defence that had leaked three tries in each of its last two games and Saracens were rewarded by conceding only two penalties to secure their first win in three matches.

Returning Pacific Islander Kameli Ratuvou crossed along with Glen Jackson and Brad Barritt to grab the hosts victory and prevent Mike Ruddock's Worcester making it three wins on the spin.

And Jones, who is a close friend of the 2007 Webb Ellis trophy winner, revealed he had already set in motion a deal for White to return early in 2009.

"Jake is a top coach and a guy I've known a while and I'm confident of getting him back here in January or February," said Jones.

"He came in and wanted us to change one or two things with our defence.

"He's a good guy to have as a consultant, I know Toulon have been calling him so I'll be interested to see if he goes there.

"He has already sent me five text messages asking 'who coached the defence this week?' so I know he'll be interested in doing it again.

"It was a very good performance from us and I'm really pleased with our whole team, I thought everybody contributed out there and it was important to get a win."

Chris Pennell had dragged Worcester back into the game with two penalties as Saracens fly-half Jackson failed to find aim with his boot.

But Sam Tuitupou's yellow card ended any hopes of a comeback as the hosts secured the win late on through Barritt's first try for the club.

Worcester's Director of Rugby Ruddock insists his side must run a tighter ship if they are to return to the form which earned back-to-back wins over Sale and Newcastle.

"It was Christmas come early for Saracens in the first half," said Ruddock.

"We let them off the hook by giving away silly penalties.

"It's something we talked about and we had planned to eradicate for this game after we conceded 17 penalties last week, but it hasn't happened.

"We got ourselves back into the game but then Sam's sin-bin meant we were chasing them and it turned out to be an eight-point penalty because they scored the try.

"It didn't help us, but we were in the game for 70 minutes and it was very frustrating not to capitalise on that.

"Indiscipline is something that has crept back into our game and we can't let it happen because it is very costly."