Sport

Leicester given too much turnover ball by Exiles

True to his ethos as a man who just gets on with the job, Neil Back had no idea that he had scored his 50th try for Leicester…

By WILLIAM FOTHERINGHAM
Mon Sept 18 2000 - 01:00

True to his ethos as a man who just gets on with the job, Neil Back had no idea that he had scored his 50th try for Leicester after just 13 minutes of the Premiership game on Saturday. Perhaps this was because he grounded the ball beneath a rolling maul following a Martin Johnson lineout take in the 22, a manoeuvre which has been carried out to such effect so often that it is hard to distinguish one from another.

Back is no average forward though; equally typically he was wide on the left wing in the London Irish 22 just before half-time when he received a knee in his forehead and was taken off to receive nine stitches above his right eye.

Vitally, his try put the Premiership leaders back into the game immediately after Irish had stolen a march when a speculative Conor O'Shea chip landed perfectly for Paul Sackey, who sizzled past the Leicester cover. That, however, was as good as it got for the visitors in the first half apart from a penalty from O'Shea to go with Jarrod Cunningham's earlier score.

Leicester, still off their best form, shone sporadically, but that was more than enough as Irish gifted them more turnover ball than they quite knew how to deal with. A try for the backs coach Pat Howard - after Back had made much of the ground - and three Tim Stimpson penalties put them eight points clear at the break, while Winston Stanley and Alastair Newmarch's scores were the icing on the cake before flanker Eddie Halvey's final-minute try for Irish restored a veneer of respectability.

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Ireland's coach Warren Gatland watched his third Exiles match this season, but, like the visitors, did not have a great deal to take away. "Every time I watch them, they tend to lose," he mused. "They were outgunned." The London Irish coach Dick Best was more forthright: "We squandered a lot of chances through incredibly sloppy handling."

LEICESTER: Stimpson; Newmarch, Lloyd, Howard (Smith, 75min), Stanley; Goode, Healey (Grindal, 72); Rowntree, West (Cockerill, 80), Garforth (Nebbett, 68), Johnson (capt; Short, 62), Kay, Corry, Back (Gustard, 39), Balding.

LONDON IRISH: O'Shea (capt); Sackey, Matson, Wright, Bishop; Cunningham, Ellis (Campbell, 48); Worsley (Hatley, 61), Kirke (Alexopoulos, 66), Halford (Hardwick, 61), Strudwick, Williams (Delaney, 69), Halvey, Dawson, Sheasby.

Referee: J Barnard (Yorkshire).