Bench Marc
SMITH LEAVES IRISH STEWING
MARCUS SMITH stole the show with his dancing feet and nerves of steel as Quins kept up their play-off push – to leave his mentor purring.
Nick Evans, the former All Black who is attack coach at the club, watched as the fly-half skipped through the Irish defence with the clock in the red to pull this game out of the fire.
Smith helped Quins get over the 48th-minute red-carding of centre Andre Esterhuizen, who was given his marching orders for a forearm smash on Curtis Rona.
Quins were 15-9 up then but slipped to 21-18 thanks to tries from Irish wings Ben Loader and
Ollie Haskell-Collins before Smith stuck the knife in and helped Danny Care celebrate his 300th club game – and Mike Brown his 350th – in style.
The No.10 struck a penalty from half-way close to the Irish line, Quins won the line out, Care fed Smith who made mugs of the defence and that was that.
Evans said: “I am probably most proud of the kick.
“He is pretty good at beating most people but that kind of pressure of getting a set-piece penalty on half-way and you have to get it close to give us a chance. It is an area of the game he is constantly improving on.
“It is tough because it is swirly in the stadium and then you have got the external pressure, the score pressure, the time pressure.
“He was really positive, felt he had to go for it and the outcome was brilliant.”
Smith revealed the old heads in the side, like Care and Brown, told him to go for broke when he could have played safe.
He added: “The senior boys stood up and made the call. They said we could get it as close to the line as possible and felt we could get over it from the line-out.
“I told Danny just to give me the ball and it worked perfectly.” In a niggly match Brown opened the try-scoring when he charged on to Care’s short pass and piled over.
That made it 7-6 to Quins and wing Caden Murley’s score put the visitors 15-9 up at the break.
But with Esterhuizen off the pitch Irish got in front at 21-18 thanks to tries from their young wingers – only for Smith to settle the contest.
Boss Declan Kidney said: “There was little between the two sides. It was dramatic and we have been involved in a few of those recently.
“Sadly, we came out on the wrong side of this one. We didn’t play as well as we can do.”