MIKE Coman admitted a ‘rusty’ London Irish were fortunate to come away with a 23-22 victory at Ealing Trailfinders on Saturday.

Exiles looked in control while leading 17-8 early in the second half and ultimately extended their perfect Greene King IPA Championship record to 14 matches thanks to a 71st-minute Tommy Bell penalty, but they were made to work hard by a side they may yet face in the play-off semi finals come the end of the season.

Coman admitted: “They pushed us all the way and we knew coming here it was going to be a real battle.

“They really got stuck into us and when we went down in that last 10 minutes there was a real bit of pressure on us to get back ahead.

“But we’ve got to take the positives out of it and we did some good stuff throughout the game. We kept calm when we needed to and it was a good challenge for us. We haven’t been put in that position before this year but we just got ahead and closed the game out.”

Director of Rugby Nick Kennedy had rotated his squad for the British & Irish Cup in the previous fortnight, and Coman believes Irish will improve from their display at Vallis Way.

He commented: “We did some good stuff, but were just a little off in some areas which is a little frustrating. Hopefully they’ll be ironed out when we get used to playing together a little bit more.

“We’ve had a wee bit of a break and there was a little bit of rustiness and our shape wasn’t quite there.

“Overall in terms of our work rate, effort and a bit of grit at the end, I thought we did pretty well.”