Blues extinguish Irish Euro hopes
Sportsdesk • Published 14 Jan 2012 17:30
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London Irish 15 - 22 Cardiff Blues
LONDON Irish can no longer qualify for the Heineken Cup quarter finals following a 22-15 defeat at Madejski Stadium.
Exiles needed to win to stand any chance of reaching the knockout stages. But they failed to fire on the day, with Blues going top of Pool Two courtesy of the victory.
Toby Booth's Exiles led 9-6 at the break thanks to three penalties from Adrian Jarvis to two from Leigh Halfpenny.
But Wales skipper Sam Warburton grabbed the only try of the match early in the second-half, with Halfpenny adding the extras, to put Blues 13-9 in front.
Irish then cut the gap to a point through the boot of Delon Armitage.
Halfpenny, though, restored the four-point advantage with another penalty - only for Jarvis to land his fourth and again haul Irish back to within a point at 16-15.
But that was the last time Exiles troubled the scoreboard as two more Halfpenny penalties saw Blues home, even though a yellow card for Bradley Davies with 30 seconds left meant the hosts could have still drawn level from the very last play of a disjointed game.
Blues host Parisian side Racing Metro in the final round of games next weekend while the Exiles, whose European campaign is now over, travel to Edinburgh, who are level on 17 points with the Welsh outfit.
London Irish: D Armitage; Ojo, Spratt, Hape Shingler 72), Thompstone (Homer 72); Jarvis, Allinson; Dermody (Corbisiero 58), Paice (Buckland 36), Rautenbach (Ion 50), Kennedy (Casey 76), Garvey, Evans, Sisi, Gray. Not Used: Sandford, Hodgson.
Cardiff Blues: Halfpenny; Cuthbert, Laulala, Henson, Czekaj (Mustoe 58); Parks, L Williams (Rees 58); G Jenkins, T Thomas (Tyrell 63), Filise (Andrews 50), B Davies, Tito (Molitika 72), Paterson, Warburton, Rush. Not Used: Yapp, Navidi, Sweeney. Sin Bin: B. Davies (79).
Att: 9,923.
Ref: Neil Paterson (SRFU).
This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 13 Jan 12
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