The Exiles kept faith with Flutey, who had missed a potential match-winner only two minutes earlier, even though Everitt - one of the Premiership's most prolific kickers - had come on as a replacement. Smith explained: â00We'd never sack a kicker. Riki's body language was great and he was really striking the ball well. He only scuffed one from the left-hand touchline which, for a left-foot kicker, is very tough. It was great for Riki to nail that goal. Having missed a chance to win the game he then got back on the horse and knocked it over.â0
Smith was relieved to come away with victory in a match played in difficult windy conditions. Irish failed to produce the free-flowing rugby which took them to last season's play-offs and Smith added: â00We are disappointed we had to resort to kicking penalties to win the game. Ideally we would like four tries every time. We are not entirely happy with the performance but we will take the result.â0
He praised Harlequins for their display on their return to the Premiership adding: â00They will cause problems for a lot of teams.â0
But Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards was far from happy with his side's performance. â00The boys were bitterly disappointed. It wasn't the fact we lost in the final two minutes, it was that we didn't execute things the way we wanted. We didn't mix our game up very well. Our performance wasn't up to the standard that they expect from themselves.â0
But Richards had no complaints about the decision which awarded Irish their late match-winning penalty. He added: â00It was a penalty. It was down to a bit of over-exuberance by one of our replacements.â0
