London Irish boss Toby Booth admits his players have given themselves "a mountain to climb" to reach the play-offs.
Exiles boss less than impressed with Kingsholm no-show
London Irish boss Toby Booth admits his players have given themselves "a mountain to climb" following Saturday's 34-20 defeat to Gloucester at Kingsholm.
The away day reverse leaves the Exiles needing to beat Northampton in two weeks time, as well as hoping results involving Wasps and Bath go their way, if they are to make the Guinness Premiership play-offs.
Irish, beaten at home by lowly Leeds Carnegie last weekend, were blown away during the first-half as Gloucester cruised into a 27-3 lead.
The Exiles, who were twice reduced to 14 men during the match, simply failed to recover thereafter, and Booth admitted afterwards that the performance simply was not good enough.
Rant and rave
"Obviously, you want to be in the play-offs," he said.
"If you want to be a consistent top-four team, as we do, you have to deal with the expectation. But we have played poorly at times and not got results.
"When you relinquish field position in games, you give yourself a mountain to climb. We have contributed massively to our own downfall in the turnover and penalty stakes.
"We didn't rant and rave too much at half-time," added Booth.
"We could gamble in the second-half, and I was more pleased with the second 40 minutes because some players rolled up their sleeves.
"We went 19 months in terms of getting points out of every Premiership game, but during the last three months we've come up short four or five times."
Booth's opposite number Bryan Redpath was delighted after witnessing a performance that keeps alive his team's hopes of Heineken Cup qualification next term.
Messy
"I was very happy with the first 40 minutes," said the Gloucester chief.
"We controlled field position, created pressure and took our opportunities. At 27-3, things got a little bit messy, but I thought the players were great today.
"We've got to go to Worcester now in two weeks' time and prove we are a side who should be in the top six.
"We regrouped from the middle of December and we've done reasonably well since then.
"It's a case of ifs and buts, I guess, but we will look at the here and now and we've got a big challenge in two weeks' time."
