Paice: Pack must lay proper platform
LONDON Irish are 80 minutes from returning to the Premiership after their success at Headingley on Wednesday night but captain David Paice is not taking Yorkshire Carnegie and promotion for granted.
The Exiles won the first match 29-18 and they go into the second leg at the Madejski Stadium with an 11-point advantage over the Leeds outfit.
It would take something special from Carnegie to upset the promotion party now, but Paice is expecting another tough challenge from their northern rivals who led 15-13 at the break on Wednesday.
“I don’t think we can start looking at the 11 points we have in hand,” he told The Rugby Paper. “If we win the game we win the final and we go up that’s as simple as that. The focus has to be on winning the game rather than start counting.
“We haven’t thought about the Premiership all season so we’re not going to start now. We know how good Carnegie can be so we’re not going to take them lightly.
“The first-half of the first leg was the toughest 40 minutes I’ve played for a good couple of years in terms of physicality, regardless of whether it was in the Premiership or the Championship.
“They cut us up a couple of times producing a lot of go forward with their captain Ryan Burrows and then a try from their very good back-three.
“We’ll have to make sure our scrum is up for the fight again so they don’t have a platform to launch their attack from.”
With nerves clearly showing in the Exiles’ camp in the opening 40 minutes of the first leg, the promotion favourites managed to get to grips with the occasion in the second half to win through, thanks to the calm heads of the more experienced players.
Paice added: “You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Carnegie for the way they came out and what they showed on Wednesday.
“It didn’t surprise us to see Carnegie at this level but maybe the occasion got to a few of the players. But the way we bounced back showed great strength of character and a lot of resilience.
“A few of our senior players like Ben Franks and Tommy Bell had really good games and that helped us keep the pressure on.
“Our bench was massive for us too, with the likes of George Robson and Luke Narraway coming on. George won the Premiership with Quins and Luke has played for England in the past.
“They were able to cut through the panic and urged us to go back to basics. Rugby can get overcomplicated and sometimes it’s good to go back to basics.”