Harlequins maintained their impressive start to the season with another demolition job. This week’s victims were Newcastle and the Quins took no mercy running in 6 tries to the Falcons one. The turbulence over the road at Twickenham is perfectly contrasted by the fluidity and demonstration of quality within the Harlequins’ ranks. They are starting to look very much like Champions elect and with young English talent such as Jordan Turner-Hall, Joe Marler, Seb Stegmann and Mike Brown they could dominate the English game over the next few years in a way Leicester have until recently.
The 39-8 scoreline would suggest the Quins came up against very little fight but that was not the case. Newcastle, currently sitting bottom of the Premiership table did not seem all that bad a team and gave a good account of themselves especially when down to 13 men at one point. Indeed for much of the first half the visitors held their own and gave Harlequins a real physical fight. The lead was just 15-5 at half time, but in truth could have been even closer.
The second half started badly for the Falcons and an early penalty miss from Gopperth set the tone for the rest of the game. Two yellow cards in six minutes left Newcastle with 13 men to withstand the Quins’ barrage and the resilience thy had shown in the first half was not there after the break. The Quins added four tries to the two they had scored in the first half to open up a huge gap over their visitors.
The gap in class between league leaders and basement boys was far more apparent in the second half and both clubs ambition for the rest of the season took contrasting steps. Worcester’s victory over bath on Friday night leaves Newcastle nine points adrift of safety, and the prospect of the English top flight losing another of its great Northern clubs seems an ever growing likelihood. The Quins’ position perfectly contrasts this. They and fellow Southerners, Saracens, look almost certain to be the teams to beat in the race to top the league table and come May and the playoffs, Quins will definitely be there or there abouts.