Perhaps only a man who had played for Wellington Hurricanes could have kept his head in the eye of the storm that swirled around the Madejski Stadium.

Jarrod Cunningham's peerless place-kicking was the difference between these sides in Saturday's gale but the Exiles were really home and dry before the game had kicked off. Richmond, without six of their regular pack, never had enough ballast to cope with the buffeting they received from the London Irish forwards.

And so the team that finished last season in such buoyant fashion with six straight wins now see their title hopes disappear overboard. "There's no point deluding ourselves. This job is all about setting realistic goals and it will be difficult to win the title after losing six games," said Richmond's director of rugby John Kingston.

"Looking at it coldly, the difference was the place-kicking but there was more to it than that. They just had more of the ball. But I would defy even Northampton or Leicester to be competitive without five or six regular forwards and, when Adam Venter pulled out with flu just before Christmas, I almost had to laugh."

Kingston is hoping his captain Ben Clarke and fellow forwards Barry Williams, the latest addition to the walking wounded, and Craig Quinnell will be back for their next league encounter, at Gloucester on January 16th. But he admits replacing Scott Quinnell, a recent departure to Llanelli, is a difficult task.

"Scott's loss has been compounded by all our injuries and we have been papering over the cracks. But it would be lunacy to bring in someone on a big contract when we don't even know what the structure of the season will be next season and if there will be club rugby between May and October."

Kingston's opposite number Dick Best has seen his multinational side win four times on their travels this season. He calls his team "upwardly mobile" but admitted the acid test would be their next two games, against Newcastle this Saturday and at Northampton tomorrow week.

"The Newcastle game will be a brutal affair," he said. "But we were back to our scavenging, tenacious selves today."

Best says the initial plans for a two-tier British League which "dumped" his side in a second division along with Irish provinces, who have since spurned the scheme, have motivated his team, who are happy to travel west to Reading but not to Connacht.

Best was happy despite seeing Justin Bishop's first-half try disallowed for a marginal forward pass from Stephen Bachop and despite conceding two excellent tries to Richmond, through Agustin Pichot's darting run from a scrum and Matt Pini's injury-time consolation. Irish's try by Rob Gallacher, battering over in a second-half rolling maul from a line-out, better summed up the match.

SCORERS: Richmond: Tries: Pichot, Pini. Penalty: Va'a. London Irish: Try: Gallacher. Conversion: Cunningham. Penalties: Cunningham 6.

RICHMOND: Pini; Walne, Bateman (Dixon, 76min), Wright, Brown; Va'a, Pichot (capt); McFarland (Powell, 76), Cuthbert, Davies, Cusack (Codling, 59), Gillies, Swift (Barfoot, 62), Hutton, Cabannes.

LONDON IRISH: O'Shea (capt); Bishop, Burrows, Venter, Cunningham; Bachop, Putt (Campbell, 62); Hatley, Howe (Kirke, 48), Hardwick, Spicer, O'Kelly, Boer, Dawson, Gallacher (Feaunati, 69).

Referee: G Hughes (Manchester).