Booth happy despite ugly win

London Irish coach Toby Booth confessed he was pleased with his side's 12-11 win over Cardiff Blues, despite the scrappy nature of the LV=Cup clash.

The Blues were 11-9 ahead until the final minutes of the Cardiff City Stadium spectacle, when replacement Ryan Lamb snatched the win for the Exiles with a late penalty.

"It was two sides who looked like they had never met each other before, but it depends what you want out of the game," said Booth.

"I see it as an opportunity for youngsters and protecting your senior players, so from our side of things we are always going to struggle for first-phase consistency which makes attack difficult, but I was pretty pleased we were able to get over the line at the end."

Booth believes the current rules of the game are responsible for some of the poor action that was witnessed on the field.

"There is only one real change and that is the interpretation of the breakdown and people are terrified to take the ball into contact repeatedly, which is how you build pressure," he said.

"The breakdown has to be a contest and a few years ago it was in the attack's favour, now it is all in the defence's favour. Hopefully it will come back to the middle.

"Until then you will see kicking and error-strewn performances. I don't want to be a part of it to be honest but those are the conditions we are under."

Potential

Booth also hailed Lamb, who came off the bench late in the match to kick the crucial penalty, and suggested the fly-half could have the potential for international success.

"He has come out of his holiday at Gloucester and has reassessed if he wants to be an international player," added Booth.

"We have encouraged him to do the things he is good at, with ball in hand, and worked on the things he was not so good at, such as goal-kicking under pressure. He has grabbed his opportunity with both hands."

Disappointed Blues boss Dai Young admitted that neither team had shown much to please the fans during the erratic match.

"It was a really poor game with a lot of handling errors and inaccuracies. It was very scrappy and lacked a bit of structure. That was not something to excite anybody," said Young.

"I am disappointed we lost and although I felt we had the majority of territory and possession I also felt Irish were more urgent and a bit sharper than us.

"Our approach work on occasions was quite good but once we got in their 22 individual errors let us down and that is a disappointing factor."