Harlequins fans walk out early during humiliating defeat by Leicester

Geoff Parling is building nicely. His team defied an E. coli outbreak before a comfortable victory that was built upon the scrummaging dominance of Nicky Smith and Joe Heyes, who might well be facing one another when England host Wales over the A316 in a fortnight. Those Tigers props milked a stream of penalties, which appeared to soften up Harlequins.

There were fine individual scores, too, for Jack van Poortvliet, Freddie Steward and Izaia Perese. The latter two, especially, were aided by passive defence. Jason Gilmore, the acting Harlequins head coach, has rowed back on his December declaration that the club’s Prem campaign was “over”. Frankly, though, this insipid display suggested the players believe it is.

They found the Champions Cup to be a haven, beating Stormers and La Rochelleimpressively. The manner of this capitulation, however, puts a sobering perspective on those exploits. Across their last four Prem matches, all of them heavy defeats, Harlequins have conceded 183 points and now sit ninth. That is ghastly, and Gilmore put the lapses down to mental fragility.

“That’s us this year, it’s frustrating,” admitted the Australian. “I just said to the boys that it’s not skill-set or ability there. That’s more mind-set. We’ve had a good two weeks and we thought we were in a good spot. We blew chances early but they squeezed us in the set piece, put us on the back foot and we just couldn’t handle it.”

On the subject of the walk-out, Gilmore adopted a contrite tone. “Our fans have been brilliant,” he said. “They support us every week. We had a sold-out Stoop tonight and I understand the disappointment, trust me. No one likes those types of games and I don’t begrudge that at all. They’re loyal to the club and we’ve got to give them a reason to stay.”

A potential blemish for Leicester, and for Steve Borthwick in the context of the Six Nations, was an apparent injury to Van Poortvliet. The 24-year-old scrum-half has had his tally of England caps curbed by untimely ailments and limped off late on. His try was special, showcasing pace, power and skill.

Tigers had gone ahead on the cusp of the second quarter through wing Gabriel Hamer-Webb, who celebrated his Wales call-up with an excellent all-round performance and was particularly effective in the air. Five minutes later, from a line-out close to halfway, an exchange between Charlie Clare and Hanro Liebenberg created an opening.

Van Poortvliet followed up, regathered his dink over Cadan Murley and stepped back inside between three scrambling defenders. He seems to be largely underappreciated outside of the East Midlands, though Borthwick will hope that scans clear any serious damage.

“He’s had some injuries that haven’t helped him but he’s a top-quality nine,” Parling said of Van Poortvliet. “His leadership is growing, his delivery is good and he showed what a danger he can be with ball in hand. The first half of that line-out move was planned. When Jack got the ball and chipped, that wasn’t planned. That’s just his instinct and what he can do.”

A Billy Searle penalty made the score 17-0 at half-time and Steward, vying to retain the England full-back spot, carved between Sam Riley and Harry Williams for a third try that was far too simple. Blamire compounded the misery, leading to the exodus, and Perese charged 50 metres through more poor tackling. Harlequins almost looked sheepish at a consolation from Chandler Cunningham-South.

Parling noted the efforts of Cameron Henderson and Tommy Reffell, omitted from the respective squads of Scotland and Wales, and revealed that 12 players had suffered from E. coli on the way back from South Africa last week. Tigers did much of their preparation online. They are now fourth, and will mount a play-off charge when the Prem returns.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]