London Irish secure home cup final after “hell of a shift”
Declan Danaher, London Irish Defence Coach, hailed “a hell of a shift” from his forward pack as the catalyst for their Premiership Rugby Cup semi-final victory over Northampton Saints at the Gtech Community Stadium on Friday night.
Other standouts included Caulfield’s lock partner Chunya Munga, Hooker Ignacio Ruiz and replacement prop Matt Cornish who produced a sumptuous dummy to set up Eddie Poolman’s eventual game-winner.
The front row consistently won penalties at the scrum, breaking apart the Saints’ attack and pinning the away side back in their own 22.
Outside the pack, inside-centre Rory Jennings produced a stellar performance, scoring 15 of his side’s points off his right boot.
Jennings initially had a sluggish start to the year from the coaching staff’s point of view, but he has found his best form recently.
“Jenno is having a great season. He and Paddy [Jackson] have been brilliant. In terms of your attack, if you’ve got two playmakers out there, it will always flow a bit better.
“Two guys are singing from the same hymn sheet, and it works for us. That’s why we wanted to play Jacob [Atkins] and Jenno tonight,” Danaher explained.
Some contentious decisions from referee Sara Cox angered the London Irish faithful around the Gtech. Primarily, Saints winger Courtnall Skosan saw no card after his shove on Caolan Englefield resulted in the airborne Ben Loader landing directly on his head.
Danaher suggested that the collision may have been a 50-50, but that doesn’t necessarily excuse it.
“I suppose it’s a tricky one because we’re asking guys to protect the catcher. Looking at the incident, I think Caolan does look over his shoulder to check where the guy is and probably does shift across. But I don’t know if two wrongs make a right.
“So if he shifts across and looks, does that mean you’re allowed to push that player? Because, obviously, he’s not necessarily in a position to see you even though he’s looked over his shoulder for a second. He’s gone back to thinking right I want to protect this guy as he catches, and if you get shoved from behind, well you’re going to get incidents like that,” Danaher said.
Despite the fine performance from his side, Danaher made it abundantly clear that London Irish were not finished, having fallen at the last hurdle in the final a year ago.
“It’s massive. It’s on St Patrick’s day weekend, and we’ve unfinished business in this competition. So we’re going to have to put in a decent performance.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s Sale or Exeter. Both teams set the standard with what they have done and are currently doing,” Danaher said.
The final will be a monumental fixture in the history of London Irish, considering the Exiles have not won a top-flight trophy since they won the Powergen cup in 2002.
As a result, Danaher and the rest of the coaching staff will attempt to get the players acclimatised to the pressure of a final.
“In terms of how we train and push buttons, we will dial things up and down to try and create that pressure. I just think we need to put them in that cauldron as much as we can the week leading up to the game, and then hopefully, there’ll be a good place to perform, but at the same time, find solutions to problems,” he explained.
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