London Irish end Zurich drought

London Irish 20 Saracens 3

London Irish ended an 11-month wait for a Zurich Premiership win at their Madejski Stadium home against Saracens.

Tries from Justin Bishop, Delon Armitage and Michael Horak, a Barry Everitt penalty and Armitage’s conversion halted a barren run stretching back to their 9-3 win against Sale on November 30 last year.

Irish, though, hardly needed to work up a sweat against a shambolic Saracens side who could only muster a single Nicky Little penalty.

Visiting coach Rod Kafer’s gamble on untried fly-half Ben Russell was exposed after 40 minutes and any momentum error-prone Saracens generated was lost when Raphael Ibanez and Simon Raiwalui were both sent to the sin-bin.

The immediate future looks grim, too, after they lost England flanker Richard Hill to a knee injury shortly before half-time.

Irish had rejigged their back-row for this game, bringing in Declan Danaher and Phil Murphy, with Scott Staniforth and Michael Horak starting at wing and full-back as they searched for a second win of the season.

Saracens, though, had opted for rather more drastic surgery by replacing Little at fly-half with the untried Russell.

The 20-year-old was handed his first Premiership start for Saracens after moving to the club from Northampton in the summer.

Russell struggled, though, with a succession of poor kicks and a couple of missed tackles and he was eventually put out of his misery at the interval.

Perhaps he was dragged down to the standard of those around him in a truly dreadful opening half as both sides kicked possession away with abandon.

Irish, though, were more enterprising, particularly when they avoided the combative Saracens back row and when wings Bishop and Staniforth got their hands on the ball.

And after visiting hooker Ibanez was sin-binned for handling in a ruck, Everitt got the scoreboard moving with a straightforward penalty on the half-hour.

That was the cue for some concerted Irish pressure and their first try a minute before the break.

The move was started by Mike Catt when he launched a counter-attack from deep and several phases later the overlap was engineered for Bishop to slide into the right-hand corner.

A bleak afternoon for Saracens got worse when Hill was carried off with a injury to his left knee and the World Cup winner did not reappear in the second half.

His side immediately dug themselves into deeper trouble when Raiwalui – only on the field for 10 minutes – earned himself a yellow card for a stamp on Murphy.

They rallied briefly for Little to pull back three points with his second penalty attempt 11 minutes from time.

But Irish picked up the pace again and struck twice in the last six minutes to make sure of the points.

A cleverly-worked move off the back of a close-range scrum in the 74th minute saw Kieron Dawson spin down the blindside for replacement centre Armitage to slide over in the corner.

Then, as Saracens tried to attack from deep, they lost the ball in midfield for Horak to break a tackle and touch down under the posts with Armitage adding the simple conversion.