Young Irish army on the march with front row power

L Irish ............ 34 Connacht .......... 3

DIRECTOR of rugby Nick Kennedy hailed his young ones as Irish’s fresh-faced army comfortably overpowered their Connacht rivals.

Tries from Harry Elrington, Ollie Hoskins, Jason Harris-Wright, Tom Parton and Joe Cokanasiga made it two wins out of two in Pool 3 of this season’s British and Irish Cup for the hosts. The priority at Madejski Stadium is clearly to bring Premiership rugby back to the club following last May’s relegation. But lifting this trophy is firmly within Irish sights on this performance from a makeshift outfit which certainly looked up to the task.

A delighted Kennedy enthused: “That was very enjoyable and impressive. We made 15 changes from last week's team and it was such a young team with so many school leavers and season ticket holders playing. So to perform like that and win so well is very pleasing.

“It gives us some more selection headaches for the Championship and that can only be a good thing with such a long season ahead of us.

“The forwards did very well and it was nice to see the front row boys getting among the tries. But I thought our defence was excellent as well because they threw plenty at us.”

Irish really did make light work of their rivals, running in five tries and leaving Connacht desperate to see the end of a tough day in Berkshire.

Scrum-half Conor McKeon kicked Connacht into a third minute lead but

that was as good as it got for them as Irish were superior in every department.

Fly-half Greig Tonks levelled matters with a penalty and then came an Irish quickfire front row hat-trick of tries. Loose head Elrington, tight head Hoskins and then hooker Harris-Wright all bulldozed their way across the Connacht line from driving line-out mauls.

Tonks converted the first two and Connacht were left gasping for breath at the 22-3 half-time score.

Irish had Fijian No8 Senitiki Nayalo sin-binned for a dangerous tackle on the stroke of half-time and then full-back Parton was shown a yellow card ten minutes after the break.

But Parton returned to race in for the fourth and bonus point try while wing Cokanasiga completed the rout with the fifth.

TEAMS

IRISH: Parton 7; Cokanasiga 7, Williams 7, Neal 7 (Hearn, 52, 6), Fowlie 8; Tonks 8 (Atkins, 70, 6), Murphy 7 (Allinson, 50, 6); Elrington 8 (Hay, 76, 6), Harris-Wright 8 (Gleave, 78, 6), Hoskins 8 (Palframan, 50, 6); Lloyd 7, Sexton 7; Cooke 8 (Frost, 73, 6), Gilsenan 8, Nayalo 7. CONNACHT: Panter 6; Leavy 6 (Conroy, 53, 6), Parata 6, Lam 7, O'Keeffe 6 (Murphy, 73, 6); Carty 6, McKeon 7 (Kerins, 53, 6); Gleeson 7 (Naughton, 60, 6), O'Toole 6 (O'Hehir, 76, 6), East 6; Stephenson 6, Qualter 7 (Masterson, 73, 6); Kelly 7, Connolly 6, McVeigh 6 (Pim, 75, 6). REFEREE: M Hudson ATTENDANCE: 3109 Star man Jason Harris-Wright - London Irish