Quins turn Irish party into a wake

London Irish 6 Harlequins 16

London Irish were sent tumbling to the foot of the Zurich Premiership table as Harlequins recorded their first away win since St Patrick's Day 2001.

The feast day of the patron saint of Irishmen, not to mention drinkers of every nationality, obviously works some kind of magic on the boys from the capital.

By contrast, this match in deepest Berkshire on the eve of St Paddy's Day 2003 brought only serious misfortune for London Irish, who were sent to the bottom of the table yesterday by Newcastle's 24-22 victory over Leicester in the North-east.

The final kick of the match, a third penalty for Mark Williams five minutes into stoppage-time, denied them even a bonus point for keeping the margin of defeat to seven points or fewer. That might be crucial come the season's end.

On a day not short of irony, the Irish slipped to the bottom while setting a club record attendance of 18,585 at the Madejski Stadium. It was also the highest crowd anywhere in the Zurich Premiership this season but, unless they can suddenly find some form or fortune, they will not be around to defend that mark next year.

Director of rugby Conor O'Shea said: 'You ask if we're too good to go down - we are plenty good enough to go down, if you know what I mean. If we play like that, we've no chance of staying up.

'We have to win three of our last five games, being realistic. It's a very tall order. It's a horrible position to be in.

'Early in the season we were the bully boys, physically we were all over teams. Now we are being bullied, losing so much ball in the collision and the breakdown.

'Today we suffered from stage-fright, but we need that great crowd to keep coming down here and supporting us.'

The great pity yesterday was that, amid a Celtic carnival atmosphere, neither side could offer much in the way of on-field entertainment.

There were knock-ons and foul-ups aplenty, line- outs which went anywhere but to the intended jumper, and a general nervousness about proceedings which reminded everyone of exactly what was at stake.

Relegation may well kill whichever professional club happens to fall that way this season, barring another bit of jiggery-pokery to keep everyone together for another year, and the prospect of Irish going down prompted a sympathetic response from Harlequins.

Mark Evans, joint chief executive and head coach, said: 'I'm on record many times saying that relegation is bonkers and I will never, ever change that view - because I'm right. I think it's nonsense to be even thinking of letting a club like this go out of the Premiership.'

That is a view which would undoubtedly have found many supporters in the bars which stayed open long after full-time at the Madejski. The Irish ballads being churned out were accompanied by a mournful-sounding choir of fans - at least until the drink anaesthetised them from reality.

A temporary touch of depression was entirely understandable given events leading up to last night's wake, Irish never having looked like winning, even when they went 3- 0 up thanks to a Barry Everitt penalty after nine minutes.

By half-time Quins were 7-3 up, Will Greenwood demonstrating his class by finishing from close range and Paul Burke converting. The visitors never looked back.

Even when the impressive Burke was removed from proceedings with a dead leg, Quins were not knocked out of their stride, Williams taking over kicking duties as his forwards won an ugly battle for territory and possession.

Evans believes his team need only two more points to guarantee safety but, assessing the situation in the wrong half of the table, he said: 'The bottom six will be stabbing each other with anything that comes to hand, because they are all desperate not to finish 12th.

'It's great for us to get the monkey off our backs by winning away. What mattered today was the result - no one is going to remember the silly knock-ons and mistakes come June, when someone has been relegated.'

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