Battered Exiles up against it

Focus on London Irish: Johnny Watterson on the problems facing Brian Smith's side in going toe to toe with Europe's elite

Bob Casey crushes his oversized frame into the chair in the bowels of Twickenham. He is being asked a series of trivia on rugby for an English publication and his face is twisted into anguished concentration. He also appears to be shaking his head a lot.

"How did you do in the quiz?" you ask him.

"Not very well," he replies. "To be honest I'm not much of a rugby geek."

Casey and London Irish coach Brian Smith are not used to this kind of attention. As the third-placed team in last year's Premiership, they earned the right this season to mix with the big teams in the Heineken European Cup. Last time they played with the elite of Europe they never got out of the pool, fell away and struggled for three years to again go toe to toe with Munster and the like. This year it is Ulster, Toulouse and Llanelli Scarlets in Pool Five who could make or break their season.

"We need to go one better this year even though we are in a bit of a group of death," says Casey. Leicester claim to have been given the same sort of bum draw as they are in Pool Four with Munster, Bourgoin and Cardiff Blues.

London Irish are both thankful and a little concerned about their current position. The challenge and profile of European Cup rugby has been something they have been chasing for some time and now that it has arrived, they find they are holed beneath the water line. A string of injuries, including Casey, who will be unavailable for the first two pool games after tearing ankle ligaments at training five weeks ago, are threatening to wreck the Exiles' early-season plans.

"The lack of time for preparation has not been a small problem for us," says Smith in reference to Declan Kidney's complaint about a short pre-season. "It has been a big problem. We've played in the European Challenge Cup finals and played 100 minutes in that game right at the end of the season and we are still struggling to get our full side on the pitch.

"It has taken a massive toll on us. We played 35 competitive games last season and had a very short pre-season. This is the price we have paid to check into the Heineken Cup competition.

"At the moment we are still carrying that injury baggage. As the competition warms up we are going to come into full strength but at the moment we are a bit short.

"We've no choice and we have to do as well as we can with the side we have out and we've to do that in the Guinness Premiership as well as in the Heineken Cup. We've roughly 40 per cent of our starting 22 out injured. That's a huge amount and it is probably because of the post-season last year."

Alongside Casey, players such as Mike Catt and Paul Hodgson are unavailable for the beginning. But Smith has brought in a few, such as the former Leinster and Toulouse forward Aidan McCullen, who along with Casey, Justin Bishop and Barry Everitt brings to four the number of wild geese in the Exiles' team.

They are probably only third in the Premiership for numbers of Irish players and are far from being the first-choice stop for Irish players going to England; London Wasps and Leicester lead the way in that context and are seen as offering more for Irish recruits. This has been a major concern for the Exiles, who are trying strenuously to regain lost ground.

"Yes, we signed Aidan over the summer," says Smith. "We probably haven't been, as a club, a very sexy place to play rugby, certainly over the previous two or three years. Last year was fantastic for us but quality Irish players are more likely to have had their heads turned by the likes of Leicester or Wasps.

"We are trying to establish ourselves again as a significant force in the Premiership and if we do that we will attract more Irish players. It's something we are anxious to do and we do talk to the key agents in Ireland as much as we can. If we continue to improve I think we can become a place where Irish players want to come to but if you want to leave Ireland you probably want to come to a Heineken Cup club and we certainly haven't been that in the recent past. We are now, so we do have a chance of attracting those players."

But with a probable slow start to the competition because of injuries, Smith and his band have a tough job ahead to even get out of the pool. Their first match, at home to Llanelli next Friday, is followed by a tough away game to Toulouse. They then face Ulster in the Madejski Stadium on December 9th.

"The Heineken Cup is a massive step up," says Smith. "I'd say the Guinness Premiership is somewhere between it and the European Challenge Cup. We were very fortunate in the Challenge Cup and didn't lose a game until the final. We scored a lot of tries and got a lot of confidence out of it. We are now going to be coming straight out of Premiership pressure and straight into Heineken Cup pressure and as a squad we have never had to face that before."

In the Challenge Cup, London Irish could afford to rest frontline players and allow their youngsters to stretch their legs in a match environment. Sides such as Agen and Pau had a habit of sending second-string teams to away games, something Smith soon picked up on.

"Quite often when they came over to our place, the French sides would put out a weaker side and we'd crack up big scores against them and that would give our guys a chance to play some really good rugby at home. But that is ancient history now," says the coach.

"We scored a lot of tries in that competition and we got a lot of confidence out of it."

At home in the opening European Cup match, Smith and his fractured band of players are at least where they want to be.

Staying the pace with the cream is the challenge the season has set - along, perhaps, with the re-establishment of the Exiles as the premier Irish brand in rugby in Britain.