Costly errors leave Newcastle stuck in the basement
London Irish 20 Newcastle
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Your support makes all the difference.Newcastle plunged further into the relegation danger zone after yesterday's defeat by fellow strugglers London Irish at the Madejski Stadium. The Falcons have now lost 10 times in the Premiership this season and are rooted to the bottom of the table. Irish have a little more to cheer about, as this victory moves them six points clear of the bottom of the pile.
London Irish's director of rugby, Conor O'Shea, was happy to take the four-point victory, although it came at a cost with captain Ryan Strudwick limping off the field with a suspected broken leg. "The result was more important than the performance," O'Shea said. "We have now got ourselves at a crossroads, as we are winning games that we were losing. Now we can go up or down, and seventh place is within striking distance."
Neither side started well and, after missing two early penalties Barry Everitt managed to make amends with the first score of the afternoon after 36 minutes.
Newcastle made a costly error in a defensive line-out when James Christian threw the ball long, to the surprise of his team-mates. London Irish capitalised and earned themselves a scrum. Scrum-half Darren Edwards sent Everitt clear who chipped ahead and grounded the ball under the posts. This time the Irishman made no mistake, landing the conversion.
Immediately after the restart, another Falcons error led to an Irish score. This time it was the turn of centre Nick Burrows, who charged down Mark Mayerhofler's clearance kick to score.
After missing the conversion the No 10 then added his first successful penalty before winger Paul Sackey wrapped up proceedings with an 86th-minute try to hand London Irish three wins out of three over the Falcons this season.
Newcastle's director of rugby Rob Andrew is confident the Falcons can survive. "It is a pretty tough battle at the moment, but I do believe we are capable of turning it around and winning games," he said. "I think the passing of 2002 on Tuesday night will be no bad thing."
London Irish: Tries Everitt, Burrows, Sackey; Conversion Everitt; Penalty Everitt.
London Irish: Horak; Sackey, Burrows, Cannon, Bishop; Everitt, Edwards; Worsley, Drotske, Halford, Strudwick, Kennedy, Gustard, Danaher, Sheasby.
Newcastle: Noon; Shaw, May, Mayerhofler, Botham; M Wilkinson, Charlton; Peel, Christian, Hurter, Vyvyan, Grimes, Dunbar, Mower, Newby.
Referee: T Spreadbury (RFU).
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