Smith points to improvements as Irish slump to Gloucester

Sunday, September 9, 2012
9:55 AM

Brian Smith insists his London Irish side performed better than on opening day despite conceding 40 points for the second successive week.

Gloucester beat the Exiles 40-31 at the Madjeski Stadium just seven days after they were thrashed 40-3 by Saracens in the London double-header at Twickenham.

His side did claim their first scores of the season through Topsy Ojo and Halani Aulika and Tomas O’Leary but the Cherry and Whites matched them while fly-half Freddie Burns nailed seven penalties to Steve Shingler’s three.

Director of rugby Smith said: “It’s disappointing but the big positive is that it was a much improved performance from last week.

“From an attack point of view we were a lot better today. We gave ourselves a chance to win the game - last week we weren’t in the game.

“From a defence point of view we just need to close things out a bit better.

“To concede two late tries is disappointing but there’s things to work on. We need to tidy up things up front and sort out the infringements.”

Smith admitted failing with a gamble on the fitness of full-back Tom Homer, who played despite a heavily strapped left knee and was replaced in the 34th minute by England under-20 star Anthony Watson.

“He hadn’t trained all week but he came through the captain’s run yesterday,” said Smith, who handed the kicking duties to 16-point fly-half Steven Shingler.

Smith added: “He wasn’t looking all that good in the warm-up and we didn’t want to cause any more damage so we got him out of there.”