Irish pay heavy price for mistakes

POOL SIX London Irish 25 Scarlets 27: COMPLACENCY DOES not have a smell, but you could still sniff something in the air here…

POOL SIX London Irish 25 Scarlets 27:COMPLACENCY DOES not have a smell, but you could still sniff something in the air here on Saturday. Irish were over-confident.

You could hear it in the pre-match chat of their supporters and later in the desperate pleas of the PA announcer for the home fans to make more noise in retort to the Scarlets’ raucous away support. More tellingly still you could see it in the performance of the players.

Irish had won five games on the trot, rounding off a four-match streak in the Premiership with a famous away win at Leinster, and were caught short by the Scarlets’ onslaught. “This game has a habit of teaching you a lesson,” said Toby Booth, “and in certain areas on the pitch, maybe before we even got on the pitch, we got taught a lesson. The good work we did at Leinster has been erased.”

For the Scarlets’ coach, Nigel Davies, the win was “one of our very best performances in European rugby”. His side now top Pool Six which, after four league defeats, few would have predicted.

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Finally at full strength, his side were magnificent, utterly relentless in attack and ruthless in capitalising on Irish’s innumerable mistakes.

Time and again the Scarlets forced their way back after slipping behind. They were 8-0 down after 10 minutes, 18-10 down after 25 minutes, and trailed 25-21 after gifting Sailosi Tagicakibau an interception try with a soft pass in the second half, the one blemish on their astonishing performance in the final 40 minutes. Their two tries, by young fullback Dan Evans and Mark Jones, were breathtakingly skilful, Evans in particular was a delight to watch.

In the end it was another Irish error though that cost the match, Peter Richards foolishly playing the ball when offside underneath his own posts, gifting Stephen Jones the simplest of penalties to win the game in the 77th minute.

Guardian Service

LONDON IRISH: Hewat; Homer, Seveali'i, Mapusua, Tagicakibau; Lamb, Hodgson; Murphy, Paice, Rautenbach, Kennedy, Casey (capt), Danaher, Stowers, Hala'ufia. Replacements: Coetzee and Ion for Paices and Rautenbach (53 mins), Thorpe for Stowers (54 mins), Richards and Perry for Seveali'i and Casey (58 mins), Dermody for Murphy (67 mins), Lennard for Danaher (71 mins).

SCARLETS: Evans; Williams, Lamont, Davies (Higgit, 58), M Jones (capt); S Jones, Roberts; Thomas (John, 67), Rees (Owens, 60), Manu, Reed (Cooper, 60), Day, Easterby (Pugh, 60), D Jones, Lyons. Replacements: Higgit for Davies (58 mins), Owens, Cooper and Pugh for Rees, Reed and Easterby (60 mins), John for Thomas 67 mins).

Referee Peter Fitzgibbon(IRFU).