NICK Kennedy revealed he had mixed emotions after London Irish secured a bonus-point 29-20 victory against London Scottish on Saturday, writes Richard Ashton.

Exiles’ Director of Rugby saw his side return from a three-week break to wrap up a 15th consecutive Greene King IPA Championship victory of the season.

However, the unbeaten leaders, who hammered their opponents 62-12 earlier in the season, were not at their best on a wet afternoon.

And Kennedy told the Chronicle: “We’re pleased with the win and to stay where we are in the league, but disappointed with our performance overall. We made quite a few uncharacteristic errors, but I think we’ll be better for it next week.

“London Scottish were much improved and I thought they played some really good rugby, especially in the conditions.

“The boys looked rusty in parts. We’ve trained very well, but there’s nothing like proper game time and getting that game time under your belts.”

Kennedy made six changes to the side which thrashed Nottingham 60-14 in their previous game, giving recent signing Tevita Koloamadangani a debut at No. 8 and recalling the fit-again Alex Lewington. Their performances – along with the driving maul which led to three Exiles tries – were plus points for the boss.

He said: “It’s been a long time out for Lewy and the first game back’s always a lung-buster, but I thought he played really well and did all we asked of him. Tevita was powerful and made some explosive carries.

“The maul was superb and the effort the boys were putting in was outstanding. It’s something we worked on very hard in pre-season and we’ve got a lot of scores from it.”

London Irish are now 15 points clear of second-placed Yorkshire Carnegie, who they visit next Sunday.

A bonus-point success would all but guarantee Irish finish the regular season as table-toppers – a situation which would lead to automatic promotion next season – but Kennedy said that is no cause for frustration and is looking forward to the trip north.

He admitted: “We’ve got a few points we’ve worked on this week, but we’ll go up there to try and play the best we can.

“We knew what we had to do to go up at the start of the year and that’s why we’ve trained the way we have. Everything is about peaking at the end.

“That’s the way we’ve designed it and we want to get to the two semi-finals and then play well, and hopefully play our best rugby at the end of the year.”