‘We won’t get carried away’

MIKE COMAN insists London Irish will not get carried away despite Saturday’s thrilling victory at Twickenham, writes Tom Crocker.

The Exiles marked their return to the Aviva Premiership in style with a 39-29 bonus-point victory over rivals Harlequins at the national stadium.

But Coman is warning of plenty more tough tests ahead, starting with this Saturday’s trip to champions Exeter Chiefs (3pm).

“It’s been a good start and we’re all pretty happy about how the first game panned out,” the forward told The Wokingham Paper. “I think we’re still realistic. I don’t think you want to read too much into Saturday’s win.

“We know what we’ve worked on throughout the Championship last year and it was good to be able to put it out against a Premiership side to see how much we had come on. That was the pleasing aspect.

“We’re certainly under no illusions that there’s still a lot of room for improvement.”

One area Exiles will certainly be looking to improve on is the way they threatened to throw away a 19-point lead against Quins, slipping from 29-10 ahead to 32-29 with just three minutes to play.

Fortunately it did not matter as Brendan McKibbin added Irish’s fourth try to seal the win, following on from earlier scores by Topsy Ojo, Tommy Bell and Ofisa Treviranus.

“I think it was a good lesson learnt for us,” said Coman. “We had it a few times in the Championship when we had that little buffer but the difference is when you’re playing teams like Harlequins, who are individually really good, they had that license to try and do what they needed to do, which was score tries.

“They had that free license and it put a lot of stress on us, especially after fatigue set in.

“But that’s the reality of the Premiership. No matter what amount of points you’re up by, teams are going to keep coming at you and you can’t just hope you’re going to hold onto a lead.”

While this weekend’s opponents Exeter suffered defeat on the opening weekend, Saturday will be the first time the Chiefs have returned to play at Sandy Park since being crowned champions in May.

And Coman is expecting a raucous atmosphere. “I believe it’s a pretty hostile place to play,” he said. “It’s always nice playing in front of a full house and we’ll go there, look forward to it and try to focus on our game.” For more London Irish news, see our new The Sports Paper pull-out.