LONDON Irish Director of Rugby Declan Kidney believes his side need to 'manage situations better' following their 21-18 Premiership Rugby Cup defeat to Harlequins at Madejski Stadium on Saturday.

Exiles found themselves behind after just two minutes when Harlequins winger Gabriel Ibitoye broke down the right-hand flank and passed inside to the supporting James Lang to dot down.

With the visitors down to 13 men following the sin-binnings of Simon Kerrod and Stephen Lewies, Terence Hepetema cut a superb line for a converted Irish score.

A Brett Herron penalty put Quins back in front, but a Saia Fangia'a try and a Jackson penalty had Exiles 15-8 up at the interval.

Harlequins grabbed the first points of the second half when Ibitoye scored a wonderful individual try on 55 minutes, only for Jackson to nudge Irish five points clear again with a penalty just after the hour mark.

However, their hopes were dashed as Alex Dombrandt crossed and Herron landed another penalty.

And Kidney commented: "We need to learn how to manage situations during the game. There were a lot of plusses, but we need to manage some situations a little better and we will do that with the more matches we get under our belt.

“There was a lot of stuff that worked well and we will look at these things too, but we need to do is work on the other bits and these have now been discussed at our start of week review meeting.”

Nine of the club’s Academy prospect or graduates were involved in the matchday 23 and they all saw game time.

“All the players that have come through or are going through or Academy system will benefit from the experience of these games.” Kidney added.

London Irish travel to Bristol Bears on Saturday (3pm), before rounding off the pool stage at home to Sale Sharks the following week.