Irish beat Bristol to move clear of bottom side
London Irish moved five points and two places above Premiership bottom-side Bristol Bears with a hard-fought 23-7 win against the West Country strugglers.
A Rory Jennings penalty and tries from Benhard Janse van Rensburg and Ben White put Irish 17-7 up at the break.
Harry Thacker’s converted try midway through the first half was all that Bristol managed in west London.
Jennings kicked the only points of the second half, sealing a win that moved Irish up to ninth in the table. A losing bonus point from their narrow defeat against Gloucester last time out ensured the resurgent Exiles went into the bottom-of-thetable clash with Bristol a point and place better off than the visitors, whose win against Harlequins on December 27 was their first Premiership triumph since September. Bristol Bears director of rugby Pat
Lam said: “The table doesn’t lie and it’s not ideal to be where we are now from where we once were.
“We are living on scraps as we had 30 per cent territory and 30 per cent possession and if we flip those figures around, what could we do with that amount of ball?
“We had one attack in the first half, which we scored from, and just one more in the second half as the rest of the time we spent defending.” London Irish director of rugby Declan Kidney said :”Bristol are a very dangerous side if you give them possession but we managed to keep them out of our 22 for large parts of the game.
“We also managed to take our opportunities at pivotal times as our success rate in their 22 was very good and the 10 points we picked up either side of half-time was crucial. “We played some smart rugby and if we continue to do that, who knows where we may end up.”