NICK KENNEDY says London Irish still have a long way to go to earn the respect of the Premiership, despite yesterday’s thrilling 39-29 win over Harlequins at Twickenham.
London Irish looked well in control at 29-10 up, only for a flurry of late scores see Quins pull to within just three points, before Exiles sealed a bonus point victory in the final minute.
Here is what Kennedy said to the media after the match.
On the win…
It was good. I think it was similar to our performances in the Championship. We were very physical. I think we showed a lot of desire. It was pleasing to get the result, but I thought our performance was very good. A lot to learn, I thought we made some big errors that really cost us at times. Whether we’d had won or lost this, a great game for us in terms of learning, moving forward and trying to get better.
On man-of-the-match Blair Cowan…
He made 14 tackles but probably the average for him was around 18-20 last year. For people that haven’t seen him for a year it was like ‘wow look at that’. But for us, that’s actually just what he does every week. He’s a fantastic player. Really leads from the front and he was brilliant for us again today.
He’s brilliant in attack and defence, Blair. He’s someone that Scotland should be having a very close look at.
On if being in the Premiership will boost his Scotland chances…
Not many coaches will select from the Championship. Even though you go down and your team’s had a bad year, doesn’t make you a bad player. He was fantastic all last season down there, so coming up he’ll be in newspapers now and on TV more, so it’s definitely easier to watch him and for the Scottish coaches to get on their radar.
On Topsy Ojo…
Topsy broke our speed record on Thursday. For an old man, he’s now the quickest in our squad joint with one of our younger players. He’s been getting faster and faster. It’s what we’re all about as a club. We want to keep getting better as individuals as well as a team and he’d be a poster boy for that, at his age. I don’t know how old Topsy is now, he’s getting on a bit!
On Tommy Bell…
Someone just asked me about Belly as I came off the pitch and said we don’t know much about him. They mustn’t have seen the Championship because he’s been excellent for us all last season at 10 or at 15. Best goal kicker in the league and he did it again today. Counter attacking as well, very fast. I thought Belly had an excellent game.
On this giving an indication of where they’re at…
It’s just a start. We go away to Exeter next week and there’s nowhere harder to go in the Premiership. We won’t get carried away. We’ll do our analysis. We’ll preview that game and review this game and get stuck in again on Monday morning.
On rewarding the guys who played last season with starts rather than new signings…
Exactly that. They all thoroughly deserved it after a great year last year. Petrus (Du Plessis) started, Franco (van der Merwe) started and Gordon (Reid) came on the bench for us. We’ll bring in the rest of our new players slowly but surely as they get up to speed with the way that we do things and earn their spot into the team.
On it being tough for new guys to break into the team...
Yeah but we’re also a squad that rotates so people will get their opportunities. We’re not just going to stick to the same team. Regardless of the results, it’s all planned out what we’re going to do.
On relegation giving him a better chance to put his stamp on the squad…
As a club we’re building. We were very much at the bottom. The league table doesn’t lie. We’ve gone down and we’ve taken that opportunity to build as much as possible off the field as well as on the field. Building our game but building our culture and our environment and a year in a different league does help that.
We’d rather have not gone down and done that in the Premiership but the boys were superb. They just rolled up their sleeves, they got on with it, they got their way out of it and now we’re going to try to work our way up this league.
On if this win is a statement to the rest of the league…
No, I don’t think so. Everyone has got us down to finish 12th. I was just sat next to Ugo (Monye) and he had Quins to win by 17 points today. I imagine he’ll have a similar prediction next week against Exeter. One game means nothing. We’ve got a lot of work to do to properly earn people’s respect.
