Tired Exiles cling on after being given the runaround

LONDON Irish head coach Les Kiss praised Nottingham’s attacking zeal on a night when the power of his pack proved the key factor.

The Championship leaders dominated but struggled to shake off tenacious hosts in a win by five tries to four.

Another factor was the 100 per cent goal-kicking of Stephen Myler whose evening also included a second-half try for a return of 15 points.

Kiss said: “We’re pretty happy with that win after a five-day turn around following our win over Richmond on Sunday.

“You have to take your hat off to them. They played on the fact that we had a quick turn-around and swung the ball round and played with pace.”

Kiss said Irish had tried to be as direct as possible to quell Nottingham’s reputation for some neat rugby. “It was a tradesman’s performance from our pack.”

Three forwards in hooker David Porecki, No.8 Matt Rogerson and prop Ollie Hoskins, who was singled out by Kiss for his display up front, contributed tries.

Irish started well and looked to be far stronger than a Nottingham pack shored up by Devante Onojaife (Northampton) and Sam Lewis (Leicester) because of injuries.

But Irish were never able to pull away after centre Terrence Hepetema had bustled over.

Nottingham levelled twice in the first half via a couple of excellent tries from prop Mike Daniels, whose pace saw him slice through the defence, and wing David Williams who caught Shane O’Leary’s cross kick.

Irish led 21-14 at the interval having kept ahead through tries by Porecki and Rogerson. When Myler scored in the corner, five minutes into the second half, they looked set to pull clear.

However, Nottingham always had the fortitude to respond and engineered a further score, centre Luke Peters forcing his way over to keep them in the match at 21-29.

Irish stretched their advantage in the 68th minute – Hoskins finishing a lineout drive – only for Nottingham to delight their fans by adding a fourth try through Onojaife and a last-minute penalty from O’Leary.

O’Leary, the top scorer in the league, could not quite match Myler’s excellence as he failed to convert – the only miss by a kicker all night.

Nottingham boss Neil Fowkes, who hopes to retain his locks for Saturday’s trip to Scottish, said: “We stuck to our task and showed we can play some good rugby.”