LONDON Irish captain Josh McNally was pleased with his side after they returned to Greene King IPA Championship action with a 38-5 victory at Hartpury.

Tries from Matt Williams, Ben Meehan, Tom Stephenson, Dave Porecki, Topsy Ojo and Scott Steele secured another bonus-point, following six weeks of RFU Championship Cup games.

Irish remain five points clear at the top of the table and McNally commented: "We're really happy. We're back in the league now and we wanted to put a statement out because before the cup was the Jersey game (Irish's only loss).

"We wanted to come out firing and I thought the first 40 minutes we showed some real intent.

"The game sort of died off a little bit in the second half, but to get five points away from home keeps us with a little bit of breathing space at the top of the table, which we can be really happy with.

"We've had a big two weeks of training and we wanted to come out and right some wrongs, and prove to ourselves we could put a decent performance in.

"Hopefully we can put that down as a benchmark and keep it going from there."

Scrum half Meehan added: "We came and got the job done. Hartpury were very good and went through some seriously long amounts of phases, but the forwards fronted up really well."

Irish do not have a game this weekend, returning to Madejski Stadium on Sunday, January 13 against Richmond.

And McNally concluded: "We've got another two-week break but it will be nice to get back to the Mad Stad, especially against Richmond who we haven't played in the league. We want to be firing for that game."