LONDON Irish forwards coach George Skivington was left frustrated as his side lost their opening Anglo-Welsh Cup game 26-22 at Madejski Stadium, writes Richard Ashton.

Exiles outscored their opponents four tries to two, but Bath fly half Freddie Burns kicked 16 points to fie his side to victory.

Skivington said: "It was disappointing. We started badly early on, the scrum wasn't functioning, we missed a couple of kicks to touch and it probably took us 25 minutes to wake up.

"There were lapses of concentration which is very frustrating and the amount of errors we made was high. Against teams like Bath every time you make an error you're punished."

He continued: "The positives were when we had the ball we executed what we'd talked about during the week, and the biggest positive was we made a lot of uncharacteristic errors and we were still in the game."

The Irish back row also impressed despite the defeat, and Skivington paid tribute to two-try flanker Max Northcote-Green and Australian No. 8 Jake Schatz.

He said: "Max has been out for a long time, but he's been working really hard. He's a natural athlete, he's got real pace and aggression, the things you can't teach.

"He's got a few areas he needs to work on, but he's getting better and better all the time.

"The more he gets out there and plays, the better he'll get."

Speaking on Schatz, he said: "Schatzy's getting more and more game time.

"He's got a really good track record, and while he's had a little while out the game, I think he gets a little bit better with every game.

"Once he settles in and has played a bit more English rugby I think he'll be a real force for us."

Former Bath man Northcote-Green was named Irish's man of the match, and he added: "We're frustrated with the result, but it was nice to be back playing, especially against some old faces.

"Discipline killed us in the end, I thought potentially we could have won it, but we just didn't execute well enough.

"But there are plenty of positives to take away – we scored four tries, we got two points – but hopefully we'll get it right against them in two weeks time in the Premiership."