London Irish (10) 23
Tries: Lamb, Dermody, Mapusua Con: Lamb Pens: Lamb, Malone
Newcastle (7) 14
Tries: Gopperth, Bobo Con: Gopperth 2

London Irish prop Clarke Dermody dives for the line during his side's 23-14 home win over Newcastle Falcons

London Irish ended a run of six straight Premiership defeats with victory over Newcastle.

Fly-half Ryan Lamb kicked the Exiles into an early lead but it was short lived as Jimmy Gopperth converted his own try to put Falcons ahead.

Lamb replicated Gopperth's feat to give Irish a 10-7 lead at the break.

Second-half tries from Clarke Dermody and Seilala Mapusua, and a Chris Malone penalty won it for Irish before Gcobani Bobo grabbed a consolation for Falcons.

London Irish had not won a league game since beating Sale 39-26 on 31 October, a victory which took them top of the table.

Six straight defeats later meant they started this fixture in seventh place.

But they arrested that run by coming out on top in a lacklustre affair that was briefly lit up by solo tries from opposing fly-halves Lamb and Gopperth.

Lamb kicked Irish ahead with a simple 25-metre penalty after Newcastle were penalised at a ruck, but the Falcons responded impressively as Gopperth stepped inside Mapusua to score following a five-metre scrum.

The Exiles lost scrum-half Paul Hodgson to a head injury before Lamb, who had missed two penalties, put his side back in front by dancing past two defenders to score following a scrum 40 metres out.

It was a lead Irish would not squander as Dermody drove over from close range and Mapusua crossed, following good work by Topsy Ojo and replacement Darren Allinson, in the space of five minutes early in the second half.

Malone stretched the lead with a 55-metre penalty, with Bobo's converted breakaway score from the final move of the match proving scant consolation for the Falcons.

London Irish head coach Toby Booth:
"I would rather win, and play less than brilliantly, than have an impeccable loss.

"Our defence was very good today but I was less pleased with our conversion rate as we had a number of scoring opportunities."

Newcastle head coach Alan Tait:
"We came here with a game plan and we had systems in place but we gave away a soft try and early in the second half everybody started doing their own thing and nobody knew what they were doing.

"Irish are a bit of a bogey side for us but we were only outscored by three tries to two and that's a positive."

London Irish: Ojo, Thompstone, Seveali'i, Mapusua, Tagicakibau, Lamb, Hodgson, Dermody, Buckland, Ion, Kennedy, Low, Roche, Gibson, Stowers.

Replacements: Bowden for Seveali'i (75), Malone for Lamb (60), Allinson for Hodgson (21), Murphy for Dermody (49), Herring for Buckland (78), W. Johnson for Ion (65), G. Johnson for Low (75), S. Armitage for Roche (60).

Sin Bin: S. Armitage (68).

Newcastle: Manning, Fielden, Eves, Tu'ipulotu, A. Tait, Gopperth, Young, Golding, Thompson, Hall, Hudson, van der Heijden, Swinson, Welch, Hogg.

Replacements: Bobo for Manning (41), Vickerman for Tu'ipulotu (67), Charlton for Young (66), Shiels for Golding (54), Vickers for Thompson (49), Brookes for Hall (49), M. Wilson for van der Heijden (65), Levi for Swinson (66).

Att: 6,806

Ref: Martin Fox (RFU).

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