London Irish coach Toby Booth says his side's 38-0 thumping of Sale signals they are back in the title fight.
Exiles boss sees benefit of time away as team bounces back
London Irish coach Toby Booth says his side's 38-0 thumping of Sale sends out a warning that they are back in the Guinness Premiership title fight.
One win in nine saw a huge slump from the Exiles, but a week away in Tenerife obviously raised team spirits as they hit back in style.
Irish scored five tries to take a bonus point a move above Wasps into fourth place in the table, but they visit their play-off rivals next week.
Booth says his team, who lost to Leicester Tigers in last year's championship play-off final, are now back in the title race.
"We are not in this competition to make up the numbers, we are in it to be in the final event," said Booth.
Defensive
"From being one of the best defensive sides in the last few years we've leaked points and contributed massively to our downfall but we defended well today."
"Next week is a very difficult challenge for us. Wasps were very good against Northampton yesterday and were quite unlucky.
"But we are up for it. This was the first of the six remaining games in our little mini season which decides who makes the play-offs and that's what we focused on in our break in Tenerife."
Flanker Steffon Armitage has not stopped scoring tries since Martin Johnson dropped him from the England squad, and he grabbed two more scores in the victory.
"Martin Johnson obviously knows what he wants and if Steffon isn't part of that then so be it," Booth said of his England absence. "But he's becoming a more complete player because he offers so much in attack as well as defence."
Brother Delon Armitage was also dropped as England's full-back, but returned for Irish on the wing with Booth denying he moved him there to take him out of the firing line.
Switch
"There were a couple of reasons for it," he explained. "Pete Hewitt had done very well in training but Delon is a very good attacking weapon whatever position he plays so it made sense for us to give him something else to focus on and remind him why he loves playing for us.
"He wasn't with us when we were abroad because he'd been getting some deserved down time and getting out of the spotlight.
"It's incredibly tough. He's still relatively new to the internationals so it's the first time he's had to deal with some disappointment. The sign of good players is how they bounce back and Delon was very, very good today."
Booth's Sale counterpart Kingsley Jones made wholesale changes to his pack ahead of Friday night's crucial relegation clash with bottom club Worcester Warriors.
He revealed that the decision not to risk some key players was discussed at board level, but they still lost flanker Carl Fearns with a knee injury while scrum-half Dwayne Peel and replacement Luke Abraham both suffered shoulder injuries.
"It was a bit of a high-risk strategy but we play for our lives against Worcester on Friday," he admitted.
"Your darkest fears are what happened today, you get a thumping and take three injuries who look like they might be out for quite a while."
