Premiership: London Irish 25-25 Gloucester - Exiles draw second game of season

London Irish have now drawn against Sale and Gloucester this season

A try from captain Matt Rogerson saw London Irish draw their second Premiership game of the campaign in a gripping encounter with Gloucester.

After Gloucester had fought back from a half-time deficit, Rogerson went over in the corner with 13 minutes left.

Paddy Jackson missed a last-minute drop goal to win it for the Exiles.

Tries from Agustin Creevy and Isaac Curtis-Harris had put Irish ahead before Ben Morgan crossed twice and Louis Rees-Zammit ran in from distance.

London Irish are still without a win in their five league games this season but director of rugby Declan Kidney may take some heart from how his side did not capitulate in the wake of heavy second-half pressure from the visitors.

However, his charges probably should have been out of sight in a first half which also saw Ben Loader's try chalked off for a careless forward pass from Jackson.

Number eight Morgan started the comeback when he crashed over from the back of a rolling maul and he scored in the same fashion shortly after to put Gloucester within two points at 20-18.

Wales wing Rees-Zammit took the limelight away from a game dominated by the forwards when he intercepted a loose pass from Nick Phipps to sprint in from 75 metres.

Rogerson brought the scores level when he finished off a fine run from Ollie Hassell-Collins, but Jackson crucially could not convert from the touchline as both sides had to settle for two points.

London Irish director of rugby Declan Kidney told BBC Radio London:

"We had plenty of opportunities and had we taken all of them, we'd have come away with the win.

"That's one part of it. But we fought our way back into it having given Gloucester the upper hand, so I'm pleased with the fight.

"It's about being a bit smarter in some situations, that's as a collective so that we can understand what we're trying to do in certain situations.

"We knew that if we gave Gloucester some space, they would punish us and that's what happened. Although we might have dominated the statistics for long periods of the game, it's the scoreboard that matters."

Gloucester head coach George Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

"The first half we weren't quite there, I thought we were just a bit slow out of the blocks and as a group, we'll have to address that.

"We just asked the question at half-time, 'what are we here to do?' And the boys responded and I thought everything that's been hammered into them in training from an attacking side for the past few weeks, they put into practice.

"We were a little slack in the first 20 and I'll have to look hard at what was happening at the breakdown, every time we had some momentum, we gave them an easy out.

"I'm proud of them for that second-half performance but there's a good learning for us about why we started sluggishly.

"They are disappointed as we're not a team that's looking to draw, we're looking to win. But we'll take that for how we performed in the first half."

London Irish: Parton; Loader, Rona, Hepetema, Hassell-Collins; Jackson, Phipps; Dell, Creevy, M van der Merwe, Mafi, Simmons, Rogerson (capt), Curtis-Harris, Tuisue.

Replacements: Cornish, Goodrick-Clarke, Hoskins, Coleman, Donnell, White, Jennings, Van Rensburg.

Gloucester: Carreras; Rees-Zammit, Harris, Atkinson, May; Hastings, Meehan; Rapava-Ruskin, Singleton, Gotovtsev, Clarke, Alemanno, Ackermann, Ludlow (capt), Morgan.

Replacements: Socino, Elrington, Ford-Robinson, Thomas, Clement, Chapman, Twelvetrees, Moyle.

Referee: Karl Dickson (RFU).

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