Irish survive late onslaught

London Irish clung to their unbeaten record at the Madejski Stadium last night, denying Newcastle the win which would have put them at the head of the pack chasing Leicester.

Dave Walder, Jonny Wilkinson's fly half deputy, failed to land an equalising conversion from close to the left-hand touchline after substitute winger Gareth Maclure's first Premiership try 13 minutes from time before the Irish survived a late onslaught.

Newcastle, 10 points down going into the final quarter, dragged themselves back with Walder's fourth penalty in as many attempts. Despite a triple substitution in their pack and the late entry of scrum half Gary Armstrong in place of Va'aiga Tuigamala, they could not quite work Walder into position to drop the decisive goal and gain a psychological edge before the weekend Tetley's Bitter Cup quarter-final between the clubs.

The Irish, on home ground for only the second time in more than six weeks, were greeted by the sight of some 20,000 empty seats - which meant that they were never in danger of having to delay kick-off because of crowd congestion.

They resumed normal business by taking the now customary swipe at the RFU over its failure to govern the professional game.

As the fall-out continued over the collapse of the Andrew Plan, the Irish's chief executive, Geoff Huckstep, blasted the Twickenham hierarchy for 'an abdication of the RFU's responsibility of staggering proportions.'

A wet Tuesday night was not exactly conducive to packing them in from the Thames Valley, never mind Tyneside, with the attendance figure creeping to just 4,609. Newcastle's solitary coachload of supporters barely numbered 20 - hardly surprising considering they all would have been hard pushed to reach home much before the morning milk delivery.