London Irish need to become more hard-nosed to turn defeats into wins and are "a work in progress."
That is how Director of rugby Brian Smith sees the current state of the development of his Exiles as they head towards the halfway stage of the season.
"We have had a lot of disruptions with injuries, we had eight or nine players away on international duty, but we are not making excuses," said Smith.
"There is a lot of talent, but we have yet to become a hard-nosed winning team. We were aware of that when we inherited the squad.
"But I think we are developing nicely. A lot of elements of our game are improving. We have made massive gains in the set-piece and in our driving game and in our scrummaging.
"We want to make sure we are a very difficult team to score against.
"We have always been a team that scored plenty of points, certainly in recent times, and we are continuing to do that and we are also making inroads on our defence. We have worked really hard in training on the defensive side of things."
