NICK KENNEDY feels London Irish have got a big prospect on their hands in Theo Brophy Clews.
The 20-year-old had only scored two tries in his senior career before Saturday’s run-out against Russian side Krasny Yar, where he bagged four in 22 second-half minutes to spark a 47-17 victory.
“Theo’s on the end of everything,” said director of rugby Kennedy.
“He’s our highest GPS guy in the week in training because he just wants the ball in his hands all the time and he’s a real talent.
“He got four tries, they were team tries but it’s reward for all his hard work in training.”
Irish produced a poor first half display at the Mad Stad, trailing 10-7 at the break as it looked like their European Challenge Cup hopes were coming to an end.
But they upped their game after the restart to pick up the full five points and keep themselves in with a sniff of progressing to the quarter-finals.
“We weren’t playing well,” admitted Kennedy.
“We didn’t look after the ball.
“A couple of times we did put the ball through some phases, first time we scored and the second time we caused some troubles, but we just didn’t look after the ball well enough.
“Our ball security needed to improve and it did at half time.
“We discussed what was going wrong for us and also in the first half I thought our urgency wasn’t quite there either.
“Once we addressed those things at half-time, we looked a much better side for it.”
The victory brought to an end a run of 11 straight defeats in all competitions for the Exiles.
And Kennedy admits that sort of stat is not good enough.
“It’s been too long without a win,” he said.
“Whilst there is lots to work on and it was a scrappy game, especially in the first half, it’s just pleasing to get a win.”
Irish travel to Georgia to face Krasny Yar again this Saturday to round off the pool stage of the Challenge Cup, knowing they must win and hope other results go their way to have a chance of going through.
