Irish get their mojo back to sink Saints
LONDON Irish, losing finalists to Worcester last season, eased into this year’s Premiership Cup final with a hard-earned win over Saints.
Ultimately Irish had a bit too much heft and experience up front and prevented Saints’ potent looking back line from dictating events, but for a long time it was nip and tuck.
Both sides looked full of attacking potential but this was a semi-final and there were nerves aplenty and on occasions the fluency was lacking.
There was one glorious early exception though when Saints got it right. James Grayson, back after four months out through injury, found Ollie Sleightholme with a well-judged cross field kick. Michael Dyke had it well covered but Sleightholme judged his leap to perfection to pluck it out of Dykes’ hands on the way down to score.
Irish replied through Lucio Cinti who was on hand after a Tom Litchfield kick was charged down and flanker Jack Cook retrieved and passed to the young Pumas wing.
The game then went to sleep for 20 minutes before it reignited again with a flurry of activity as half time approached.
Rory Jennings kicked a 40m penalty to increase the Exiles lead and then Litchfield atoned for his earlier error by sweeping in for a fine try after Saints had run an old fashioned switchback.
Going into added time Cinti crossed for a second in the left corner but that was chalked off because Sleightholme was there receiving urgent medical attention.
Did it make any difference to Irish scoring? Probably not. Was it the right decision? Most certainly. Sleightholme was clearly groggy and didn’t need another knock while the medic could also have been badly injured.
Instead Irish, who were playing advantage, had to make do with three points with a penalty in front of the posts.
After the break Irish seized the initiative with a well rehearsed front of the line shift to send Josh Basham crashing over and, with Jennings on excellent kicking form adding the two points from wide out, Irish threatened to stretch away.
Saints though were in obdurate mood with Grayson adding a brace of penalties, the second a sweetly struck 47m
effort, while the fly-half also went close chasing a charge down into the Irish in-goal area and missing the touchdown by inches.
With ten minutes remaining it was a twopoint game but, just when it was required, the Exiles pack discovered its mojo to reassert its dominance. Jennings was again on target to stretch that lead to five and then came the game’s crowning moment.
Jennings threw out a long pass to replacement Matt Cornish on the right wing and the hooker toyed with the defence.
With a man on the outside and one on the inside he trundled forward before throwing a dummy hitting the accelerator and presenting Aussie Eddie Poolman with the simplest of tries.
So, a good night’s work for Irish. So tight is the Premiership behind Saracens and Sale that, despite a poor start to the season, there is no reason why they cannot qualify for the play-offs and the momentum built by this cup run has fed new energy into their season at an important time.