London Irish coach Toby Booth was happy to see his side win ugly as they ended a six-match losing run in league action.
Tait 'miffed' to concede Lamb try after warning his players about fly-half
London Irish coach Toby Booth was happy to see his side win ugly as they ended a six-match losing run in Aviva Premiership action.
The Exiles saw off Newcastle 23-14 at the Madejski Stadium despite losing Paul Hodgson to injury and having substitute Steffan Armitage sin-binned in the second half.
Ryan Lamb scored all of the home side's points, including a fine solo try after 25 minutes, as Irish led 10-7 at the half-time interval.
They then moved further clear after the break with two quick-fire scores, the first coming from Clarke Dermody before Seilala Mapusua touched down just five minutes later.
Win ugly
"I would rather win, and play less than brilliantly, than have an impeccable loss," he said.
"Our defence was very good today but I was less pleased with our conversion rate as we had a number of scoring opportunities."
Exiles scrum-half Hodgson left the field after 20 minutes with a nasty-looking head injury following a charge down of a Jimmy Gopperth clearance.
Booth added: "He has concussion and some stitches but hopefully he will be OK. That was typical of his commitment."
Opposite number Alan Tait was disappointed with certain aspects of his side's performance as they fell short on their travels.
The Falcons scored two converted tries - Jimmy Gopperth and Gcobani Bobo going over - but didn't even come away with a losing bonus point.
"We came here with a game plan and we had systems in place but we gave away a soft try and early in the second half everybody started doing their own thing and nobody knew what they were doing," said Tait.
"I was really happy in the first half as we put pressure on them but we had talked about Lamb's show and go and I am miffed that he got away with it.
"Irish are a bit of a bogey side for us but we were only outscored by three tries to two and that's a positive."
