Opposition view: Danaher delighted with London Irish's showing at Saints

Assistant coach Declan Danaher was delighted with London Irish's 'superb' first-half showing against Saints on Saturday.
James Stokes scored for London Irish during the first halfJames Stokes scored for London Irish during the first half
James Stokes scored for London Irish during the first half

And Danaher was also pleased with the resolve that was shown during the second period as Irish overcame a late scare to secure a 36-26 Premiership Rugby Cup win.

Saints were 26-7 down at the break as Irish flew to a try bonus point.

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But the black, green and gold bounced back, levelling things up with eight minutes to go, only to be hit by a late sucker punch as Benhard van Rensburg scored in the corner.

Rory Jennings added the conversion and a penalty to make sure of the Irish win.

And Danaher said: "I'm so pleased for the lads taking the opportunity to pull the jersey on.

"We were superb in the first half and in fairness to Saints, they came out and played a lot better in the second half.

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"To grind it out for that 30 minutes and having a man in the bin as well, was pleasing.

"We took our chance at the end with a great try and Jenno (Jennings) showed he is in good form at the moment as he kicked the conversion and then the penalty.

"He had ice in his veins and he needs to keep doing what he's doing."

Danaher added: "What's special for the lads is you come somewhere like this and it's full.

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"For them to play in front of a full crowd here comes with pressure.

"When those lads put on the Saints jersey there's an expectation to win, so for our lads to come here and get a win away from home is testament to the work the boys have done all week.

"The intensity and focus as we built towards Saturday was really good.

"Matty Williams and Cookey (Jack Cooke) have brought that to the boil nicely from a leadership point of view and you saw a lot of that in that first half where we were very clinical."