Shane Geraghty’s enjoying tough love with London Irish

Playmaker Shane Geraghty puts London Irish's recent upturn in form down to a tough new approach.
The Exiles may have taken a thumping from Northampton yesterday, but Geraghty is    certain their defensive re-think will bring Premiership survival.
Before New Year, Irish were staring at relegation having conceded 31 tries in their opening 12 league games.
But defensive guru Shaun Edwards was jettisoned from his part-time role, with director of rugby Brian Smith taking up duties in his place.
Before yesterday, the Exiles had conceded six tries in four league games since the switch and achieved priceless victories over Gloucester, Saracens and Wasps.
Irish are now looking up the table rather than down and Geraghty puts the turnaround down to an all-round harder edge in the camp.
He said: “We had a couple of tough meetings, Brian changed a few things in defence and what we ask of each other now is a massive improvement.
“Everyone knows what they're doing and if people miss tackles or make mistakes, we're a lot harder on each other.  Since New Year our mindset has completely changed.
“We've toughened up and our defence has improved massively. We've set the tone in training and everything's been taken up a notch.
“From being in the dark places, you have to step up.”
The experiment of loaning Edwards from Wales clearly backfired, but Geraghty says it was the players who accepted responsibility for the slump.
“The players wanted things to change,” he said. “They wanted more responsibility and wanted the coaches to push us a bit more.
“When the coaches realised that, standards were set higher and it's now up to us to reach them or they'll bring in someone else.
“New signings helped as well. Jebb Sinclair came in and Pat Phibbs playing at No.9 has been a good link between the forwards and backs.
“Having a couple of key players and a change of mindset have made a big difference.”  Geraghty, 26, struggled with injury during the opening months of the campaign, but since Christmas has been a revelation at inside-centre.
His burgeoning partnership with fly-half Ian Humphreys has been a feature of the Exiles revival and the pair combined instinctively for the opening try in last week's 30-19 win over Wasps.
“It's been good for Ian and I to have a few games together and week-on-week things are getting better for me and the team,” Geraghty said.
“Our change of mindset means defence and the breakdown are our No.1 priorities but we still want to attack.
“Guy Armitage has stepped up in midfield and Marland Yarde is scoring some really good tries.
“That's allowed me to step up as well and having an extra ball-player in midfield suits us.”
Irish must still be wary of relegation, although that could be irrelevant depending on the RFU disciplinary hearing involving player registration issues at London Welsh.
But Geraghty insists Irish will not abandon their traditional running game in favour of safety-first kicking rugby.
“I think Irish would be the last people to shut up shop in terms of the way we want to attack,” he said.
“We scored a couple of good tries against Wasps, so we've got people who can play.
“It's been tough to change our mindset to ‘defence comes first,' but we were shipping tries for fun and it had to be done.
“But with the talented players we've got our attack will look after itself and we'll still look to score tries.”
NEALE HARVEY