London Irish throttle Yorkshire Carnegie with 12 tries
LONDON Irish head coach Les Kiss hailed the contribution of Topsy Ojo as the experienced campaigner marked his club record equalling appearance with a try in a thumping victory over Yorkshire Carnegie.
Ojo, who joins Exiles stalwart David Paice on 290 appearances, dotted down in trademark fashion to cap off an emphatic display for Declan Kidney’s men.
“Topsy’s a legend of London Irish and he did his job well today,” said Kiss. “It’s nice to score tries, but it all starts with our defence and we’ve been challenging ourselves in that area.
“It was nearly a zero result and our defence really set the platform for the win today.”
Irish ran in 12 tries to underline their title credentials, Ollie Hoskins bagging himself a hat-trick on his 50th outing for the club.
Ben Meehan, a late replacement for the injured Stephen Myler, opened the scoring on eight minutes.
Irish doubled their tally of tries five minutes later when referee John Meredith awarded a penalty try as the Irish heavies turned the screw with a driving lineout 5m from the line.
Carnegie were dealt a double blow as second row Will Britton was yellow carded for his role in conceding the seven points and Irish led 12-0.
Enjoying a rich vein of form in the green jersey of late, Tom Parton registered try No.3 on 23 minutes with a sprightly finish in the corner.
Irish sealed the try bonus-point on 32 minutes when debutant hooker Motu Matu’u dotted down from the back of a rolling maul to put Kidney’s troops in cruise control.
While the plaudits were coming Ojo’s way, Hoskins was in the thick of the action, scoring the first of his three tries on the stroke of half-time. Again, the Exiles pack wheeled a driving lineout towards the try line and Hoskins emerged from a heap of bodies having touched down.
Irish made a blistering start to the second period, Parton bagging his brace on 45 minutes thanks to an
exquisite offload from USA international Bryce Campbell.
It was seventh heaven for Irish on 54 minutes as Hoskins went over for his second try. Meehan converted and just short of the hour mark Barney Maddison got in on the act, crashing over to take Irish past 50 points.
Moments later Ojo gave the crowd exactly what they came to see as they gave the one club man a tremendous standing ovation. Meehan nailed the touchline conversion to make it 62-0. Centre Fergus Mulchrone and hooker Saia Fainga’a both came off the bench to add further scores and increase Irish’s lead to 72-0.
With the last play of the game, Carnegie No. 9 JB Bruzullier caught Irish’s defence napping to scoot in for a consolation try. However, the day belonged to Irish who now prepare for a trip to Doncaster.
“Irish’s accuracy was outstanding and today we went to pieces which was disappointing,” Carnegie DoR Chris Sterling said.
“A lot of our squad are in the treatment room, but we’ll try and get through this patch.”