Wilkinson puts boot in as London Irish's struggles continue

Jonny Wilkinson inflicted more misery on London Irish as he guided Toulon to a 19-13 Heineken Cup victory at the Madejski Stadium.

The England fly-half kicked four penalties and a conversion to Rudi Wulf's brilliantly executed try as Toulon condemned Irish to a sixth straight defeat.

Toby Booth's side had reduced the arrears to 13-10 with a try from Delon Armitage and a Ryan Lamb penalty but in the end they had to settle for a losing bonus point.

Irish are not out of the qualification hunt yet – but they will need to end their losing run in the south of France next weekend, which will be a tall order.

Jim Mallinder, the Northampton rugby director, believes next Sunday's return clash in Cardiff will be the true measure of his Aviva Premiership leaders after they beat the Blues 23-15 in their Pool 1 clash at Franklin's Gardens.

England star Chris Ashton and fellow winger Paul Diggin showed their finishing power with the tries which enabled Northampton to maintain their winning run in the competition, while fly-half Stephen Myler kicked the other 13 Saints points.

Dan Parks responded with five penalties for the Welsh side, who Mallinder expects to hit back hard in the return clash.

"It wasn't our very best performance but we won a hard-fought game," said Mallinder.

"It was a job well done but probably not a lot better than that," said Mallinder after a fiery clash in which five players were sin-binned.

"Cardiff are a very good team with some good international players and next week will be a real test of where we are as a team.

"To go down to Cardiff and, if we can, get a win there, will be a good sign of our growing maturity," he said.

Leicester coach Richard Cockerill praised his team's "spirit and stubbornness" after they left Perpignan with a potentially crucial bonus point.

Cockerill was left to reflect on Leicester's first Cup defeat after they went down 24-19 at Stade Aime Giral. Toby Flood kicked 14 points including the conversion of Geordan Murphy's second-half try in Leicester's 100th appearance in the Heineken Cup.

Cockerill said: "We had the belief to come here and win but we made a few errors that cost us and they are a dangerous side.

"The spirit and stubbornness of the players was excellent, especially in that spell where we were under severe pressure at the end of the first half. You can't coach that. It is one of the positives we will take from the game."

Ulster won the battle of the former Heineken Cup champions at Ravenhill 22-18 and gave Bath a huge mountain to climb if they are going to reach the knockout stages.

Fly-half Ian Humphreys landed five penalties for Ulster.

Saracens' Cup ambitions all-but died at Vicarage Road as Racing Metro battled back from 8-0 down to win an exciting Pool 2 tie 24-21.

Julien Laharrague scored a late drop goal to hand Aironi a dramatic 28-27 victory over Biarritz in Pool 4.