Brian Smith, the Director of Rugby of the Aviva Premiership Rugby Union club the London Irish has challenged his team to step up their game, particularly their tackling ahead of Sunday’s Aviva Premiership fixture against the Exeter Chiefs. The Exiles’ boss is happy that his side has vastly improved in converting set piece movements as well as their driving but their weakness in tackling the opponents and keeping them out of the danger zone still has him on his toes.
But he believes that the league is just a few match weeks old and there is still time for his players to improve their tackling. Speaking to the media, the boss stated that the team has an extremely talented collection of players. He mentioned that he has tried to move the team forward by putting some hard edge into the scrum halves and he believes that the driving of the London Irish is on par with the best teams in the league without a doubt.
He then mentioned the team needs to take their tackling as the next big step forward. He mentioned that the team needs to do a lot better in tackling both in attack and in defense. Smith further added that the team had had issues with defending early on in the season but they have addressed those issues now – the team is scoring two plus tries in almost every match and they have also managed to bring down the number of tries conceded to two on average.
Smith, however, is not happy with that improvement and mentioned that if the London Irish could sort out their tackling, they can easily bring down the number of tries conceded to one and that would drastically increase their production, which will hold the team in good stead in the long run.