Booth rues earlier errors
January 24 2010
London Irish boos Toby Booth was torn between emotions after seeing his team dumped out of Europe on Saturday night.
The Exiles' 11-11 draw with Leinster at Twickenham meant they finished third in Heineken Cup Pool Six behind the Irish province, who top the group, and the Scarlets.
Irish started the campaign so well by beating Leinster, the reigning champions, away from home but a brace of defeats to the Scarlets cost them dear.
"I'm not feeling suicidal," Booth said.
"Strange as it may seem, my first emotion is I'm proud of what we've achieved in this Heineken Cup campaign, to be honest.
"To be undefeated against the team that holds the trophy, and to go to their back garden and win, tells me we can live at the top table of European rugby.
"The damage was not done tonight, it was done in rounds two and five. While you can have some indifferent performances in the Guinness Premiership, if you have them in the Heineken Cup, you can't recover.
"It's part of the continued improvement that we need, this ability to perform when we feel less threatened. It's about moving from happy underdog to expectant favourite and we need to learn that at this club."
Booth defended his fly-half Chris Malone, whose poor goalkicking was the chief reason why Irish were not in the quarter-finals this evening.
The Australian went over for the Exiles' only try, a 67th-minute score that drew the scores level at 8-8, but missed a simple conversion as well as two other straightforward penalties.
"Chris is very honest," Booth said. "Before the game, he was an 85% goalkicker and he had made his last eight kicks in a row. It can happen to anyone.
"What I said to him was that without his tactical kicking and line kicking, we wouldn't be here in the first place."
After Malone and Jonathan Sexton traded penalties, Leinster had gone into the break 8-3 ahead thanks to Isa Nacewa's 38th-minute try.
Malone's try and second penalty of the game put Irish in the driving seat but, in the 78th minute, Sexton landed a long-range drop-goal that clinched a draw and earned Leinster two priceless points that handed them a home quarter-final.
"After losing that first game to London Irish, maybe we had to reset our goals," said Leinster coach Michael Cheika.
"But we hung in there, and the way it's worked out we have managed to get a home draw. It's a positive finish to the pool campaign."
Cheika praised his team for their defensive display against their English opponents.
"It's something we pride ourselves on," he said. "We know it's a way to exact pressure and maybe we can get tries out of that defence.
"It's an important backbone to our game. They were a pretty attacking team and we had to be aware of the threats they bring. We didn't get broken too many times and in games like this, it's great to have confidence in your defence."