O'Shea: Newport victory could be turning point

Conor O’Shea, who completed a memorable week by watching London Irish crush Newport 42-5 in the Heineken Cup, hopes that the victory will transform his side’s season.

“To go into a European Cup game and put on 40 points has to be a good day,” said O’Shea, the club’s director of rugby who also became managing director last week.

To progress to the quarter-finals Irish, who scored five tries today, must now beat Edinburgh and Toulouse, the Pool Five runaway leaders, in their final two games as well as further improving their try count.

“That’s improved our confidence,” said O’Shea.

“We have to win our last two games, scoring three or four tries in each and hope for the best.

“All we can do is go up to Edinburgh and try to turn in another performance like that”.

The emphatic victory atoned for last weekend’s surprise 16-12 defeat at Newport in a match O’Shea felt Irish should have won.

“Last weekend could have gone like that. We felt we were far superior but we missed seven clear-cut scoring opportunities.

“You have to take your chances but that’s been the story of our season.”

But Irish have other priorities before they resume their Heineken Cup bid to qualify for the knock-out stages.

“We are in the Powergen Cup at Newcastle next week and then have a league game against Newcastle the following week and must now concentrate on them,” said O‘Shea.

“We are not that far off. We know that but today doesn’t mean we are getting there, it probably just shows the gulf between the Welsh and English sides but the result does show what we are capable of doing.

“I think there is another 30 to 40% improvement left in us.”

Darryl Jones, the Newport director of coaching, acknowledged that the early sin-binning of Simon Raiwalui proved a handicap from which his side never recovered.

“Those things don’t help when you are down to 14 men against a good team. They tackled well and didn’t give us a chance to settle. We are beaten by a better side on the day,” he said.

“They played a nice wide game, pulled us in then took us wide and their runners came from good angles.”

Jones admitted his side suffered a crushing blow but added: “Being professionals, it is their job to pick themselves up for the next game.”