LONDON IRISH’S LONG wait for a Premiership win is over after they snatched a 25-23 victory over Northampton Saints thanks to a converted penalty try.
Irish had failed to collect a single point from their opening six matches of the 2015-16 season but their dismal run was finally ended on Saturday, lifting them off the foot of the table.
Luke Narraway and Sean Maitland tries plus a penalty and conversion from Cris Noakes gave a dominant Irish side a 15-8 lead at half-time.
Northampton piled on the pressure after the restart with George North and Kahn Fotuali’I going over, and when Irish were reduced to 14 courtesy of Asaeli Tikoirotuma’s yellow card their hopes of a first point looked to be ebbing away.
However, Jamie Gibson was sin-binned for the Saints four minutes from time and, after setting up camp in Northampton’s 22, Irish were awarded a try when a scrum went down close to the line, Shane Geraghty kicking the conversion to nick the win.
Exeter Chiefs are the new leaders after a convincing 33-17 victory against Sale Sharks, Rob Baxter’s side running in five tries to send the majority of the Sandy Park crowd home happy.
Thomas Waldrom got the Chiefs underway with a 14th minute score, and tries from James Short, Tom Johnson and a Will Chudley double sealed the win.
Sale were well in the game at the break thanks to the boot of Danny Cipriani, and took a 17-10 lead through Josh Beaumont’s 46th-minute try.
But the Sharks fell apart after that as Exeter ran in 23 unanswered points.
Meanwhile, Irish are replaced at the bottom by Newcastle Falcons, who lost 22-10 to Leicester Tigers.
Newcastle started well with a Nili Latu converted try, but yellow cards for Belisario Agulla and Mark Wilson enabled Leicester to take a position of command they did not relinquish.
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