Leeds lose track against Irish

London Irish climbed a long way towards the top of the Premiership yesterday, catapulted there by the flawless marksmanship of an uncapped fly half from Tipperary.

Barry Everitt finished with 10 out of 10 in every respect and, while these are early days, there can be no denying the effect his fusillade of goals has had on establishing a strange new hierarchy.

It is one formed by the flying start of two clubs who would be thrilled to finish in the top half, never mind the top two.

How wonderful that the embryonic table should give every appearance of being turned upside down and how weird that only London Irish and Sale out of the 12 Premiership clubs should have negotiated the two opening weekends without losing, while all the fancied runners have come a cropper, with nobody falling harder than Bath, bottom on their own.

As long as Everitt keeps knocking them over and the opposition give him as much ammunition as Leeds did at the Madejski, then the Irish, under the hard- headed direction of Springbok player- coach Brendan Venter, will win more than they lose.

Despite the same old reliance on a new concoction from the Southern Hemisphere, Everitt is a shining example that the club has not entirely sacrificed its heritage on the altar of professionalism-One of only two native Irishmen in yesterday?s squad, along with Kieron Dawson, the 25-yearold from Nenagh taught Leeds a severe lesson in the facts of Premiership life.

If the famous opening win over Bath at Headingley had given them a false impression, they have a better idea now of what will be required to survive the winter.

Leeds were five points clear at half time after cracking tries from flanker Cameron Mather and centre Shaun Woof.

But they were forced into such a continuous retreat thereafter, that Everitt used it all as target practice, picking the Second Division champions off with 10 more goals which, after his performance against Harlequins the previous week, made it 17 from 17 attempts for a total of 49 points.

Despite drilling them over from far and wide with his right-angled address to the ball and three- step approach, he was in no mood to tempt fate. He said: ?The grass is beautiful at the Madejski and they all seem to be going over at the moment. I?m sure there will be games when I?ll miss plenty.?

With Ronan O?Gara, David Humphreys and Paul Burke all ahead of him in the Irish pecking order, Everitt knows that he has a long way to go and that not everyone will be as obliging as Leeds.

They gave away nine penalties in the course of conceding 33 points without reply during a second half so onesided that the Irish will be kicking themselves ? everybody except Everitt, of course ? for squandering a point through failing to nail a fourth try.