Hassell-Collins is Exiles' hat-trick hero

Anything Manchester City's Erling Haaland can do, London Irish's Ollie Hassell-Collins can do better.

The 23-year-old scored a first half hat-trick as his Exiles side beat Bath 47-38 in a 13-try thriller in the fourth round of the Aviva Premiership.

Hassell-Collins’ first score came just four minutes in when he crossed after Will Joseph’s break – both Hassell-Collins and Joseph began their careers at Newbury RFC.

Bath’s Josh Bayliss was then sent to the sin bin and Hassell-Collins took full advantage, crossing twice more before half time as he helped Irish to a 35-5 lead at the break.

“I can’t take too much credit, I think it was the easiest hat-trick I’ll ever score,” Hassell-Collins said.

“I’ve got to give all the credit to the guys on the inside, I just had to walk them in.

“We’re working really well as a team, I think we’re all in sync.

“We were a bit disappointed to concede as many points as we did in the second half but that’s the beauty of the league, it’s so back and forth.

“It was an important win, especially after we’d had a couple of disappointing results, a good team performance.”

The win moves Irish up to seventh with 11 points – two wins and two defeats – from their opening four games.

The Exiles started the season with a 45-14 win over beleaguered Worcester before losing on the road at Northampton and Bristol.

Hassell-Collins said: “We had a good start against Worcester and so we were really disappointed with the next couple of games.

“We didn’t even want to watch them back, that’s how bad we felt, but you’ve got to do it and I think we’ve already learned from them.

“We’re looking to find some consistency now, it’s a long season and one of the hardest things is to stay on it, mentally and physically, for as much of the campaign as possible.

“Everyone’s loving it, we’ve got a lot of boys that have all come through the academy together, that’s made us really united.

“The coaches have been massive too, on and off the pitch.

“Even on our days off, just getting out and going for a coffee with a couple of the lads, little things like that can be huge in terms of how the side go at the weekend.”

Hassell-Collins scored 11 tries last season as he helped Irish to an eighth placed finish – their best since 2012 – and believes his side can be even better this campaign.

He said: “I think 100 per cent we’re capable of improving.

“We’ve got three guys in the England training camp, that’s massive for us, we’ve got boys with Scotland and Argentina.

“Hopefully all the lads can go and tear up the international stage and then come back and help us improve, we can learn from their experiences.”

Next up for Irish is a trip to undefeated Sale on Friday, October 15.

“We know it’s a difficult place to go, we got a draw there last year, we’d love to go one better," he said.

“That would be massive in terms of our momentum, I think we all believe we can win.”