Leeds (7) 24 Tries: Thomas, Fourie, Burrell Cons: Thomas 2, Lewis-Pratt Pens: Thomas
Sailosi Tagicakibau had an instant impact for Irish after he came off the bench
London Irish ensured they remain top of the Premiership with a bonus-point victory over winless Leeds.
Ryan Lamb's three penalties and a converted James Buckland try gave Irish a 16-7 lead after Cieron Thomas scored for the visitors.
Sailosi Tagicakibau's arrival after the break was quickly marked with a try.
George Stowers extended Irish's lead and, after Hendre Fourie pulled one back for Leeds, Tagicakibau's went over again ahead of Luther Burrell.
The Premiership leaders started sluggishly and rarely found any continuity before the break but did have the first chance to score as Lamb punished Leeds' repeated infringements with a 17th-minute penalty.
Leeds hit back from the restart as their impressive pack rolled the Exiles into their own 22 and Thomas glided in from 10 metres out to score under the posts and convert his try.
The visitors' poor discipline was again punished by Lamb as the Irish forwards began to find some rhythm and momentum.
After repeated threats from referee Greg Garner, Leeds skipper Fourie was shown a yellow card for going off his feet at a ruck.
Buckland's close-range try followed shortly after as the Leeds numerical disadvantage up front robbed them of their upper hand.
Lamb converted the score and added another penalty shortly before the break to give the home side an undeserved 16-7 lead.
The sense of injustice was felt in the Leeds dressing room because they came out firing in the second half and soon had another three points from Thomas's boot.
Lamb cancelled it out shortly after and that seemed to jolt the Exiles to life.
First Tagicakibau danced around two defenders for his first try just minutes after coming off the bench and then Stowers slammed the ball into the base of the post to score his as Irish appeared to kill off the contest and threatened to run riot.
Fourie pulled a try back for Leeds with 11 minutes to go, converted by Thomas, but with the bonus point threatening to slip from their grasp the hosts went for the kill.
Leeds' position was made all the more precarious when number eight Rhys Oakley was the second visiting player sin-binned with eight minutes to go.
Irish's replacement fly-half Chris Malone was held up inches short and then Semisi Mapasua's back-of-the-hand pass, which put Tagicakibau in, was judged to have gone forward.
Irish continued to pour on the pressure and they were eventually rewarded by Tagicakibau, who crossed for his second try of the game and third of the season.
Burrell picked up a consolation try for the visitors which Christian Lewis-Pratt converted with the last kick of the game.
London Irish head coach Toby Booth: "It was a very slow start without question and we fell our way into the game but I was confident that over a full 80 minutes we would be successful.
"It was a workmanlike performance with no glitz or glamour and we are satisfied but not happy with our overall performance.
"We won ugly and we will take that."
Leeds coach Andy Key: "Despite the result we are very pleased. This was a completely different performance. This was a marked improvement, we played with a never say die attitude and played for the whole 80 minutes.
"We were back to our post-Christmas form of last season and against a number of sides we would have got a win today.
"I thought Hendre [Fourie] was very unlucky. He had stolen the ball on a number of similar occasions and I felt he was pulled over the ruck by Irish players."
Replacements: Seveali'i for Bowden (55), Tagicakibau for Joseph (55), Malone for Lamb (68), Lahiff for Dermody (73), Paice for Buckland (55), Rautenbach for Corbisiero (51), Fisher for Roche (68), Garvey for Danaher (50).
Replacements: Fa'afili for Tadulala (72), Lewis-Pratt for Thomas (73), Fury for Mathie (59), Thompson for Titterrell (51), Alonso for Gomez (40), O. Denton for Hohneck (59), Oakley for Paul (20).
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 
Bookmark with:
What are these?