Booth: We handed them the win

Sportsdesk • Published 15 Feb 2010 09:00 0 Comments

LONDON Irish head coach Toby Booth admitted his side led to their own downfall after they slipped to their biggest league defeat of his tenure against Bath on Sunday.

Following recent exits from the Heineken and Anglo-Welsh Cups, the Exiles were looking to resume the Guinness Premiership season with a bang at the Madejski Stadium.

However, Booth's side produced one of their most lacklustre displays for some time to gift their opponents a 35-22 bonus-point win.

Booth, whose side had amazingly picked up at least a losing bonus-point from each one of his first 34 league games in charge since taking over from Brian Smith in July 2008, said: "It's the first time in my tenure we haven't got the minimum standard of at least a losing bonus point.

"We were missing players, but that's part and parcel of it, you have to play smarter and we just didn't play smart enough.

"We played into their hands."

Irish actually started on the front foot and there were few signs of what was to follow when Samoan back row George Stowers made an early surge through the middle.

Exiles starlet Tom Homer and Bath centre Ryan Davis swapped early penalties to make it 3-3 after 10 minutes, before Bath took complete control.

Veteran prop David Barnes exposed a huge gap in the Irish defence to score the first try with quarter of an hour gone.

Davis converted and again swapped penalties with Homer, before a telegraphed Chris Malone pass on halfway was easily intercepted by Mark Banahan.

And the former Irish Academy ace sauntered over to give his side a 20-6 lead with 20 minutes on the clock.

Bath were now brimming with confidence and with the Exiles struggling to get out of first gear, the West Country side began to sense a bonus-point could be on the cards.

A wayward lineout from the Exiles five metres from their own line gave the visitors the platform to score their third through the excellent Joe Maddock five minutes before the break.

This put Irish 25-7 down at the interval, but they did rally early in the second half with three further Homer kicks bringing them back to within 10 points.

Promising young flanker Jamie Gibson then had a try chalked off by the television match official, before Maddock's second try earned Bath the bonus-point they deserved and put the game to bed.

Homer, whose excellent goal kicking throughout provided one of the few positives for Irish, scored and converted a 79th minute try.

But it was too little, too late for Booth's boys and skipper Bob Casey has demanded a response from his side in Friday's trip to Newcastle Falcons.

He said: "It was a very disappointing first half performance. Since this group of players has been together that's as bad as we've produced.

"It's going to be a tough week and we're going to have to ask questions of everyone and put it right for next weekend.

"We pride ourselves on our defence and we didn't make them work hard for some of their scores in the first half."

When Newcastle travelled to Reading in November, the Exiles were also in disappointing form as they went down 15-11.

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