London Irish avenged their earlier Zurich Premiership defeat of the season by
Rotherham with a convincing win over the basement side.
The Exiles, who have only lost one game at their Madejski Stadium home this
term, commanded the game by scoring a massive six tries.
In fact, it only took London Irish six minutes to put the first points on the
board when winger Nmandi Ezulike touched down.
London Irish counter-attacked from a scrum deep in their own quarter for
full-back Justin Bishop to charge up field and pass to Richard Kirke, Ofisa
Tonu'u then in turn gifting Ezulike with the scoring pass.
Fly-half Barry Everett converted before adding two penalties to make the score
13-0 in as many minutes.
South African Geoff Appleford then added a converted try before Rotherham, who
have only won two Premiership games this season, finally broke the duck with a
Mike Umaga penalty. They also scored a try by former Exile Isaac Feaunati and a
Simon Binns' drop goal.
Irish, however, were not rattled by Rotherham's charge and replied with two
Everett penalties and a converted try by giant forward Ryan Strudwick on 60
minutes.
Substitute prop Neal Hatley then joined Irish's scoring run with a 67th minute
try, giving the home side a vital bonus point before pacey winger Paul Sackey
touched down for Irish's fifth try of the evening.
Hooker Dinos Alexopoulous then added insult to injury with the sixth try of
the evening, and two penalties made it 54-11
Zurich man of the match was Barry Everett.
Teams:
London Irish: Bishop, Sackey,
Appleford, Wright, Ezulike,
Everitt, Tonu'u, Worsley, Kirke, Halford, Strudwick, Delaney,
Cockle, Allen, Sheasby.
Replacements: Oliver for Appleford (59),
Hatley for Worsley (55), Alexopoulous for Kirke (66),
Hardwick for Halford (55), Williams for Delaney (55),Halvey for Allen (49).
Not Used: Campbell.
Tries: Ezulike, Appleford, Strudwick, Hatley,
Sackey, Alexopoulous.
Cons: Everitt 6.
Pens: Everitt 4.
Rotherham: Umaga, Greaves, Hassan, Shepherd, Wood, Binns,
Forster, Thorp, Johnson, Turner, Kenworthy, Cook, Greeff, Spence, Fea'unati.
Replacements: Simpson for Shepherd (74),
Harrison for Forster (70), Bunting for Thorp (42),
Latham for Johnson (70), Parr for Kenworthy (61), Earnshaw for Spence (54).
Not Used: Trivella.
Sin Bin: Kenworthy (40).
Tries: Fea'unati.
Pens: Umaga.
Drop Goals: Binns.
Att: 2,054
Ref: N Yates (RFU).
E-mail Article 
Print-Friendly
Subscribe to RSS Feed 
Post to del.icio.us
Facebook