Back row Tom Wood and lock Greg Rawlinson were both sin binned in the opening 40 minutes at the Madejski Stadium.

However, Warriors showed real resolve to hold firm in the face of adversity and even add to the score as they eventually took two points from the Guinness Premiership high flying outfit.

He said: "We had two yellow cards in the first-half. The second one was definite and I have no problem with that, but the first one was after an altercation with quite a few people involved, so it was tough to single out just one of our guys. Those sort of decisions can really hurt you.

"When we were down to 14, it was a big test for us and our game management was good - we made some really good decisions.

"We were pretty smart most of the time and we didn't just sit on the game to try and kill time, we actually went out and tried to play a bit of rugby.

"On both occasions we kicked penalties after having good field position following good passages of play, so we seized the initiative, which was good to see, rather than letting Irish come at us."

Ruddock was also full of praise for the kicking game adopted by his troops with full back Chris Latham impressing at the back.

"Our kicking game was very strong and that was typified by Chris - who was outstanding - with his kick right at the end which rolled into the corner," he added.

"Well done to London Irish, though, as they got themselves out of a tricky situation there with a good line-out. If we could have pinched that one, we could have snatched a last-minute victory.

"It wasn't just our kicking game though. I thought our fielding game was excellent. We caught a lot of contestable kicks and dominated the aerial battle, which was good."