Opposition view : Sale Sharks 7 London Irish 17

11:42am Monday 12th May 2008

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LONDON Irish director of rugby Brian Smith hailed his players as heroic after the defeated Sale 17-7 to end the season on a high.

The Exiles put in tremendous effort, particularly on the defensive end, to thwart Sharks on their won patch.

And even though they failed to seal a Heineken Cup spot, Smith remained proud of his team.

He said: "I'm not that disappointed (about failing to achieve Heineken Cup qualification).

"We had to come here and try and win the game and we asked the boys not to leave anything out there on the pitch.

"It's the most courageous performance I've seen from us. It's a shame we won't be in the Heineken Cup but we're going to give the European Challenge Cup one hell of a go.

"There are things we can contorl and things we can't control. We couldn't control the result at Welford Road today but we did a good job of what we could control.

"If you look at the calibre of Sale's squad, they have an embarassment of riches, with both Andrew Sheridan and Sebastien Bruno coming off the bench today, so it was a heroic performance."