Could not have gone any worse for Harlequins; could not have gone much better for Leicester. Bath are the first team mathematically guaranteed a place in the playoffsafter their home win over Newcastle, but Leicester take another big stride towards joining them. Maximum points in front of nigh-on 26,000 of their faithful sends them above Sale into second, with three rounds remaining.
Quins are not quite mathematically out of it, but realistically this is it for their season. Thathideous experience in Dublina few weeks ago seems to have knocked them sideways, which, combined with a long list of wounded first-teamers, has left them vulnerable. Worse, Marcus Smith spent most of the match hobbling on an ankle injury incurred early on, before he was forced off in the final quarter, a forlorn figure, anxious thoughts of the Lions surely not far from his mind.
“I don’t know how bad it is at the moment,” said Danny Wallace, Quins’ coach. “He showed his toughness by digging in after the early ankle injury, but unfortunately it got worse. He was struggling to execute by the end, as you saw.”
Smith had it relatively soft, though, compared to Cameron Anderson, keen to make an impression on Quins’ right wing, who overdid the enthusiasm in pursuit of a couple of kicks. He saw yellow in the first half for colliding with Freddie Steward as he leaped to take an up-and-under. If only he had seen the second yellow – and therefore red – he was shown for doing the same thing at the start of the second half, but he was out cold, his head thudding into Steward’s hip. After nearly a quarter of an hour of treatment, he was carried from the field in a stretcher.
“Cam’s OK,” said Wallace. “He’s back on his feet. But he was out for a while. It was a nasty one.”
Contrast the experience of Anderson’s opposite number, Adam Radwan. Since his move from Newcastle mid-season, Leicester’s wing has wooed Welford Road with a blizzard of tries, his hat-trick here bringing up a tally of sixPremiershiptries in five appearances. He might have had four, but for the finger-tips of Joe Woodward, which had minutely brushed the ball forward in the build-up, as noticed by the TMO after the conversion of Radwan’s non-try had been taken.
That would have been his hat-trick, in the 51st minute, but he had it anyway seven minutes later, Steward sending him between two defenders, whereupon he burnt round Tyrone Green as if Quins’ quicksilver full-back were a plodding prop. It had been a torrid day for Green. When he was shown yellow for a deliberate knock-on, which might have prevented yet another try for Radwan, a minute after Anderson’s red, Quins had to play 10 minutes down to 13. Radwan capitalised with his second in that period, after Jack van Poortvliet went blind from a scrum against Quins’ under-manned defence.
Van Poortvliet impressed again. He had played the same trick in the first half, during Anderson’s first spell in the bin, his break blind from a scrum setting up Ollie Hassell-Collins on the other wing, who finished the day with a brace himself.
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His second, just before Radwan’s hat-trick score, secured Leicester’s bonus point. Van Poortvliet was instrumental again, tapping a penalty and sending a miss-pass to Woodward, who did the same to Hassell-Collins. Hanro Liebenberg scored the Tigers’ sixth in the last 10 minutes, by which time Quins were well and truly gone.
The only try the visitors managed, cheered on by an enclave of Twickenham ultras tucked away in a distant corner of the Crumbie Stand, was the result of the most generous pass Handré Pollard can ever have hurled at an opponent, the first-half clock deep in the red. Luke Northmore was only too happy to run it in from his own half, but, as tries go, this was a far cry from the best of London’s dazzlers.
They have all but left the contest now. The Tigers suddenly find themselves very much in the hunt, just when it matters.