London Irish’s Brian Smith – “Old heads give our flyers direction.”
The Exiles registered only their fifth win of the season and the head coach praised his team’s attitude on the field before facing Leicester at Welford Road tomorrow.
He told The Rugby Paper: “We wanted to play the game with a lot of endeavour and, even if we found ourselves chasing the game when they intercepted the ball on our first play, we held our nerves to get a convincing bonus-point win.
“Getting these four tries was a true reflection of our attacking abilities.”
The ex-England attack coach believes a mix of experience in the midfield and raw talent out wide can fulfil their ambition to play a more expansive game after what has been a difficult start to the season for the Exiles.
“Shane Geraghty and Ian Humphreys combined very well in the midfield. Having these two distributors allows us to give our attack more width,” he said.
“Add to this duo Tomas O’Leary at scrum-half and there is a lot of experience and, with them in the midfield, it gives the team a lot of direction and purpose.
“We have some young and exciting young runners but they don’t understand the game as well as these guys yet.
“So it’s a perfect combination between youth and pace and experience and direction.”
He also highlighted the influence of his pack to keeping Irish on the front foot and providing the platform for his dangerous backline.
“Our forward pack fronted up well last weekend which we didn’t do in Salford last week,” he said.
“We edged their pack and it allowed us to get front-foot ball.”
But, he knows his side must start to perform for longer periods every week if they want to do well in Europe and boost themselves up the Premiership table.
However, despite the stiff competition Brian Smith has no doubt over his team’s ability to challenge.
“If we can put on a performance like that for 80 minutes week-in week-out I’m confident we can challenge anyone in Europe,” he said.
“It’s very difficult in any form of sport to stay on top of things for 80 minutes but we have done it before this season and we need to do it more consistently.
“We’re doing well in the Amlin and there is still plenty of time left for us to do well in the Premiership.
“The Premiership is as competitive as it’s ever been this year. There are genuinely no dolly teams in this league.
“If we can string a couple of wins together, we’ll overtake teams to finish in the top half which is our primary goal.”
ALFIE GODDEN
