DECLAN Kidney was ‘encouraged’ by his team’s display as his first match in charge of London Irish ended in defeat to Gloucester.

Relegation-haunted Exiles blew a 17-0 lead at Madejski Stadium on Saturday in a 33-29 loss to the Cherry and Whites.

The setback leaves Irish stuck on the bottom of the Aviva Premiership table and 10 points adrift of Worcester Warriors with only four matches remaining.

But technical director Kidney is refusing to accept that Exiles are down.

“I suppose you could say that it was the good, the bad and the ugly thrown into one game,” said Ireland 2009 Grand Slam winner Kidney. “There are certainly learnings for us to take from the match.

“We need to pick ourselves up, move on and take the positives. We’ve shortened the gap to 10 points and now we have two weeks to prepare for a massive game against Harlequins at The Stoop.”

And he stressed: “I saw lots to encourage me, but we still came second and I’m not going to settle for that because we’re better than that.

“Losing can become a habit, as can winning, and we just need to learn how to finish games off.”

Irish stormed into a 17-0 lead inside 20 minutes through converted tries from Josh McNally and Piet van Zyl plus a James Marshall penalty.

Reading Chronicle:

Aseli Tikoirutuma runs at the Gloucester defence on Saturday. Picture: David M.Moore.

But Gloucester then notched up 33 points without reply thanks to a brace of tries from Tom Marshall – brother of James – plus further scores from James Hanson, Lewis Ludlow and Mark Atkinson.

The hosts, backed by a 15,000 strong crowd for the annual St Patrick’s Party clash – notched two further tries late on through Theo Brophy Clews and Joe Cokanasiga, but it was too little too late.

Exiles had to settle for two bonus points for all their efforts to leave them favourites for the drop into the Championship.

Kidney, who was assisted by new head coach Les Kiss, added: “London Irish are a Premiership proposition. I’ve seen the structure behind the club and it’s strong enough to do that, but we need to start winning.

“That’s the nature of top class rugby, you have to be prepared for those times as it’s an 80 minute game.

“The game was like four quarters – I thought the first 15 minutes was okay and we probably lost our way a little in the next quarter.

“Similarly, there was a reverse in the second half and we didn’t do ourselves any favours in the third quarter, but we finished the game very strongly.”