Opposition view: London Irish will 'enjoy the journey' after seeing off Saints

Irish were impressive bonus-point winners against Saints, comfortably defeating Phil Dowson's men 37-22 at the Gtech Community Stadium.

It means that, with two games of the regular season to go, Irish sit fourth, three points ahead of Saints.

While London Irish have a trip to Saracens and a home game against Exeter Chiefs to conclude the campaign, Saints have to host Saracens and go to Newcastle Falcons.

And by a strange quirk of the schedule, Saints will have finished their regular-season campaign before Irish even play again.

The Brentford-based side will travel to Saracens on April 23 knowing exactly what they will need to do.

But director of rugby Kidney said: “There’s no pressure, and there’s nothing expected of us, so we’ve said we’d enjoy the journey.

“I’m sure if you ran down to some of the betting offices you wouldn’t get many that said we had a good chance of making it to the top four with three games to go, but what about it?

“We’re happy enough, it was a good day and it was a good game of rugby of two good sides going at it.

“We probably had more opportunities and took them than we let them have, and that was a big difference in the game.

“They came out very well at points, but our defence stood strong and we were on point, and it’s a credit to the coaches and the players.

“We have the challenge of it being four weeks to go until our next match, but now is the time to enjoy the moment.

“We have to find a way to be ready in four weeks' time to take on the league leaders (Saracens) on their home patch.”