It is all very well playing like this now. London Irish remain alive but the real story is the confidence and facility of their form, now that it has surely come too late for them. Nick Kennedy, their departed director of rugby, had always said it was there beneath the surface. Now it has burst into flower with the coaxing of Declan Kidney.
The right, or wrong, combination of results could have confirmed their relegation this weekend but maximum points here keeps their hopes alive, nine points adrift with three to play with Bristol now ready to replace them in the Premiership after their Championship win was confirmed by Ealing Trailfinders’ losing to Doncaster. The good news is they have two home games, where Worcester have only one; the bad is those home games are against Exeter and Saracens.
“Yeah, two handy ones!” said Kidney. “We’re not worrying about bigger pictures. All we’re trying to do is add value on what went before, because they had been knocking on the door. It just goes to show if one or two of those matches had gone their way the table would look different.”
As it is, Worcester’s latest win leaves Irish on the brink, which is a crying shame if they are going to go down playing like this. They rushed out to a two-try lead in the opening 22 minutes, as they did in the last round, at home to Gloucester, only to implode. This time they pressed on to humiliate a Harlequins side, most of whose luminaries were on show. None could get in the game, Mike Brown in particular suffering with end-of-season blues and Danny Care seeing the first of two yellow cards for Quins in the final quarter. “I’m going to have a good look at this,” said John Kingston of Quins’ performance. “It’s unacceptable.”
If there remains the faintest pulse to Irish’s interest in the season, that of Harlequins has long since ceased to throb. It has been apparent for some time that their ambitions amount to attaining either of the indignities of ninth or 10th. If and when relegation is abolished altogether, cynics might point out that the bottom half of the Premiership will forever find themselves in Northampton’s and Harlequins’ shoes come February or March.
Irish comprehensively outplayed Quins over the road on the season’s opening weekend. Back then it seemed there would be a most competitive struggle to avoid relegation but it turns out that the fragility of Quins, for all their brilliance when in the mood, was actually the relevant marker. Irish would not win again until they beat Worcester at the end of February.
Quins were all over the place again here and the Exiles cut them apart as if they were confidently pursuing a place in the play-offs, not fighting for their lives. They should have been ahead in only the third minute, when a lovely cut-out pass by James Marshall released Alex Lewington, but the officials, inexplicably, deemed the pass forward without so much as a tap on the TMO’s shoulder.
But not even the officials could save Quins when Piet van Zyl scored a brace in the space of 10 minutes, the first after a Tom Fowlie break, the second following a pair of brilliant chips, by Marshall and Lewington. Tommy Bell’s second conversion opened up a 14-0 lead.
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Irish had another on the half-hour. Lewington was on Marshall’s shoulder for the first break, then Theo Brophy Clews took a turn at the delicious, flat pass across a bamboozled defence, putting Max Northcote-Green into the corner. Three tries to nil up after half an hour away from home should not be where relegation near-certainties find themselves, still less 25-0 up after a penalty either side of half-time.
Only then did Quins manage to register – and that by a fingertip. Care’s chip bounced away from Marshall and Jack Clifford was able to get the first hand to the ball. But Care was to see yellow early in the final quarter and Irish struck for that crucial fourth try.
This one was barely even a fingertip. Van Zyl chipped towards the dead-ball line from an advancing maul and Fowlie managed the faintest of downward pressure, according to the TMO. They were well worth the benefit of the doubt, a further penalty – after Charlie Matthews’ yellow card had Quins down to 13 – no less than they deserved. Alas, though, fingertip remains the aptest description for their grip on survival.
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