Premiership: London Irish 36-33 Bath - Exiles enjoy five-try win as Dunn and Ewels see red

London Irish wing Ben Loader scored twice in a five-try win which moves his side within touching distance of the top four

London Irish gave their play-off hopes a boost with a bonus-point win over in-form Bath, who finished with 13 men.

Will Muir put Bath ahead before Irish hit back through Ben Loader and Matt Rogerson to lead at the break.

Anthony Watson put the visitors ahead early in the second half before team-mates Tom Dunn and Charlie Ewels were sent off within three minutes.

Irish added tries through Loader and Curtis Rona, before Josh McNally and Jack Walker crossed late for Bath.

Bath came into the game in good form, with one defeat in their past six and with just one point separating the two play-off-chasing sides in mid-table.

They were first on the scoresheet when Tom Ellis was tackled just short of the line and the ball was recycled quickly to Muir, to score his third try in two games.

Irish's Paddy Jackson and Bath's Ben Spencer exchanged penalties to make the score 10-3 to the visitors after 16 minutes, before a high tackle by Ewels on Loader resulted in the visiting skipper being shown a yellow card.

Referee Craig Maxwell-Keys showed a second yellow card to Bath's Ewels just three minutes after dismissing team-mate Dunn

The Exiles took full advantage of the extra man and Loader recovered from the tackle to show quick feet and dive over the line, before Jackson added the extras to level the scores.

Bath regained the advantage through Spencer's boot but back came Irish and, after a scything Tom Parton break, the ball was moved wide to skipper Rogerson, who went over in the corner to move his side ahead on the scoreboard.

Irish's 17-13 half-time lead was quickly extinguished through England winger Watson's converted score, but the lead changed hands again after 55 minutes when Sean O'Brien and Parton worked an overlap and the latter raced away under the posts.

Bath lost Dunn four minutes later when he was sent off for making contact with Agustin Creevy's head and Loader again made use of the numerical advantage to score his second.

A minute later, Muir was sin-binned for taking a man out in the air and Bath were down to 12 shortly afterwards when Ewels was shown a second yellow for charging into the back of a retreating Irish player, with Rona adding another Irish try to stretch the lead to 36-23 with 15 minutes remaining.

Bath kept pushing and Irish were reduced to 13 men themselves with yellow cards for Jack Cooke and Ben Donnell in the closing stages, allowing the visitors to score two close-range tries through McNally and Walker and secure two unlikely points.

Irish director of rugby Declan Kidney:

"I think the boys talked about the things we could do better and we did that for enough of the game to get us the win.

"For the first 15 to 20 minutes Bath had a lot of dominance and physicality. But we managed to keep it to 7-3 and worked our way into it.

"We exploited our transition from defence to attack well and took our chances. We've been OK at that during the year. Other than the last 15 minutes our defence was also on strike."

Bath director of rugby Stuart Hooper:

"I don't have any real complaints with the red cards. I do think they're pretty tight, and the directives are that way. When referees are making those decisions, they haven't got many places to go but I think he was pretty much spot on today.

"The cards have come close together and that's down to individual responsibility and managing yourself. It gets heated and on edge and we've made errors which have cost the team. We have to look at ourselves.

"This team has character and I love that. They've got a capacity and willingness to work for each other and that's dug out two points but I don't want us to be a team that waits for adversity to dig in."

London Irish: Parton; Loader, Rona, Brophy Clews, Hassell-Collins; Jackson, Phipps; Goodrick-Clarke, Cornish, Chawatama, Munga, Simmons, Donnell, Cowan, Rogerson (capt).

Replacements: Creevy, Gigena, Hoskins, Nott, Cooke, O'Brien, Meehan, W Joseph.

Bath: Watson; Cokanasiga, J Joseph, Clark, Muir; Bailey, B Spencer; J Schoeman, Walker, Thomas, McNally, Ewels (capt), Ellis, Underhill, Mercer.

Replacements: Dunn, Obano, Stuart, W Spencer, Reid, Chudley, Ojomoh, Gray.

Referee: Craig Maxwell-Keys (RFU).

Yellow cards: Muir (Bath); Cooke, Donnell (Irish)

Red cards: Dunn, Ewels (Bath)

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