London Irish: Club can end 13 years out of play-offs with form surge
And there we have it, the once-chronic Premiership rugby underachievers and serial drawers London Irish are in the top four and storming towards the play-offs.
Director of rugby Declan Kidney and head coach Les Kiss have taken a side that won just one of their opening eight games – excluding their match against the now-dissolved Worcester Warriors – and has turned them into an outfit who are on a Premiership run of seven wins in nine.
Irish’s late surge towards the top four and the Premiership semi-finals continued at the weekend with an impressive 37-22 victory over Northampton Saints in Saturday’s St Patrick’s Day Party at the Gtech Community Stadium.
Not just luck at London Irish
The plucky Exiles were promoted back into the top flight ahead of the 2019-2020 season and have steadily improved year by year. First it was 10th, then ninth, then eighth and now fourth; they’ve just got to hold on.
The London club have managed to develop a squad that harnesses some extraordinary English talent – such as Henry Arundell and Ben Loader – and combine it with well recruited overseas players like Samoa No8 So’otala Fa’aso’o.
But the star of the show at a packed out arena in Brentford was young English talent Tom Pearson.
The 23-year-old back-row had been in and out of former England coach Eddie Jones’s squads but is undoubtedly knocking on the door of the national team now under Steve Borthwick.
Pearson is the latest off the Cardiff Met university production line which has also delivered the likes of established international Alex Dombrandt and Harlequins centre Luke Northmore, so his stock is high.
But his explosion of energy and ability to accelerate through contact is an attribute Dombrandt doesn’t have and his offloading game beyond the gain line is something reminiscent of Northmore.
Pearson was class, but many of the other Irish boys were too. And what a time for everything to start binding together.
Schedule
Their issue comes in their schedule: they’re out of Europe and now do not play a match for another three weeks.
Thereafter they face Saracens before meeting Exeter on the last weekend of the regular season in what many are predicting to be a winner-takes-all clash.
Irish are an exciting team, and they embody what a quality English Premiership team should be: a solid club with fan favourites and a fair chunk of growing room. It is an exciting prospect for the club’s current and future owners, given growing rumours of the club being close to a sale away from current main custodian Mick Crossan.
Club sources have told City PM that they would like to draw Irish giants – but beatable opposition – Munster in the Champions Cup next year, and being comfortably in the top eight provides them with that chance.
Irish by choice…
Irish, by choice, have become London’s newest Premiership club. But they’re becoming one of the neutrals’ favourites too. Saturday’s win against Northampton Saints was a statement one and they’re really showing how a side can target a string of matches and turn it into a momentum drive towards the top four.
London Irish are the only club in the top flight to have not made the top four in the last decade, but that could change this year.
And when a club – who have been famed for developing incredible talent only for other clubs to poach, nick and steal for their own good – is on a good run and playing such good rugby while doing it, it is difficult not to enjoy watching them week in, week out.
It would be a huge moment for the club to reach the top four and if form is any guide, Irish are one of the prime bets to reach the post-regular season party.