LONDON Irish assistant coach Clark Laidlaw says his side is targeting European Challenge Cup glory after thrashing Agen 48-10, writes Richard Ashton.

The Exiles turned in their best performance of the season to pick up a maiden victory under Tom Coventry’s stewardship, scoring an impressive eight tries in the process.

Irish reached the quarter-finals of last year’s competition, but Laidlaw believes there is no reason why they cannot progress further this year.

He explained: “The Premiership’s a big, long competition and it takes a lot of games to win that, but in this we’ve got to try and get out of the group and then it’s three games to win it.

“We think we can win every game and we see this as an opportunity to do well in a competition. Potentially some of the French teams don’t see it in the same way as we’re treating it.”

Laidlaw was delighted with his side’s performance, although he admitted it was crucial to gain a victory having lost their opening four Aviva Premiership games.

He confessed: “We talked about it being a new competition, forgetting about the Premiership and focusing on this. We’re happy to get the win, it’s been a long pre-season and a long time between drinks for the club.

“We got faster ball, our set-piece was good and we got a couple of tries early which got us on the front foot.

“We’ve been training well for a few weeks but obviously you need that confidence of getting some good, quality, fast ball.

“We know we’re making improvements but the game’s about winning.”

Scrum-half Darren Allinson was superb in his first start of the season on Saturday, and he said the victory was not a shock.

He revealed: “We always knew the win was going to come and we knew when it did come it would be a big win because of the style we want to play.

“We want to score tries and the coaches have come in and backed us. It’s great to score eight tries against Agen, a top professional outfit."