Fergus Mulchrone touched down after 63 seconds and centre partner Eamonn Sheridan crossed twice in the second half to bring the Exiles back into the game after a period of Gloucester dominance.
But Shane Geraghty’s late penalty miss from 40 metres out condemned Irish to a sixth straight league defeat. With Ian Humphreys also missing from similar range in the second half it begged the question of why a proven Test kicker in former Wallaby James O’Connor remained unused.
“James has been hitting them really well this week but so have Ian and Shane,†said Irish director of rugby Brian Smith.
“In that situation you go to your No10 first and Shane was confident he could kick it. When you’re in that frame of mind you don’t step aside. If he had been a little hesitant, James would have stepped up.â€
O’Connor, Irish’s most high-profile signing for years, was a peripheral figure for much of the afternoon. Since arriving at the start of November he has yet to feature in an Irish win. No wonder he is eyeing a move to Heineken Cup holders Toulon next season.
Smith must be wondering exactly what his side have to do to win a league game after such a try-scoring imbalance, but Irish had only themselves to blame for giving Twelvetrees and Burns six chances on a perfect day for kicking. They hit the target every time.
With Jonny May touching down in the first half – his 11th try in 15 games – Gloucester enjoyed back-to-back league wins, which should remove any relegation concerns.
That is not the case for Irish, who are stuck in last-but-one place in the table, grateful for Worcester’s continuing travails.
They played some enterprising rugby in the second half when their desperation was at its height, but their only luck at the moment is bad.
Smith knows their scrum needs bolstering but for the second week running they lost new signing CJ van der Linde without the South African World Cup-winning prop firing a shot in anger. He has yet to make his debut for his new employers after tweaking a calf again in the warm-up.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-24624782
Incoming search terms:
- norman pender hawick
- norman pender
- scottish rugby player charged
- BBC news Norman Pender court case
- what date next does norman pender appear in glasow high court
- trial of scottish rugby players
- scottish rugby players assault
- rugbycollege co uk ex-scotland-rugby-player-norman-pender-denies-rape-charge
- Norman pender trial date
- Norman Pender courtcase at highcourt
London Irish 19 - Gloucester 22: Burns issue a hot potato
No comments:
Post a Comment