SMITH GETS TOP MARCS
Star fly-half turns on style but Quins give Matson a fright
MARCUS SMITH had Harlequins boss Tabai Matson reaching for a heart-rate monitor after keeping his promise to put on a show to lift rugby’s flagging morale.
The England fly-half (far right) came into the game insisting he and his team-mates were on a mission to raise the profile of the cash-strapped sport – and duly delivered a nine-try thriller.
But after taking a 20-point lead they came perilously close to giving it all back to never-say-die Saints.
Matson (right) admitted: “I’m always pretty laid-back, I think my Fijian DNA helps. But I’ve actually thought of getting an Apple Watch to see what my heart-rate is. This is a pretty brutal industry, winning and losing has an impact on you as a coach. But this club is adamant that playing a really exciting game can be successful and it’s something they’re going to continue to do.”
It was easy to think Premiership rugby is in the rudest of health as another full house rocked the Stoop and the travails of debtriddled Worcester and Wasps seemed a million miles away.
Before the game, chief executive Laurie Dalrymple even headed to a nearby pub and tweeted out an invite to buy a beer for any fans who cared to pop in.
The feelgood factor continued on the pitch as the league’s great entertainers scored three times in the opening half-hour through Jack Musk, man-of-the-match Lennox Anyanwu and Luke Northmore. How different it might have been had Northampton taken their chances rather than butchering so many as Musk, with his second, and Cadan Murley, with a peach of a finish, put the home side 35-15 ahead with 15 to play.
But this is Quins, who led by 17 at Saracens and lost and overturned a 24-point deficit at Exeter before giving up another winning position. Sure enough Saints’ passes started to stick, George Furbank and Tom James pulled back tries and the visitors were 23 phases into their search for the winner when time ran out and Matson could at last breathe easy.
Opposite number Phil Dowson was frustrated but proud of the part his side had played. “We’re trying to create something people want to watch,” he said.
“With everything that’s swirling around the periphery of the game we need to make it an entertaining spectacle – just maybe not that entertaining.”
■ JAMIE GEORGE, Guy Porter and Jack Walker have withdrawn injured from England’s training squad and been replaced by Gloucester’s Jack Singleton and Newcastle duo George McGuigan and Adam Radwan. HARLEQUINS – Tries: Musk 2, Anyanwu, Northmore, Murley. Cons: Smith 5. NORTHAMPTON – Try: Ludlam, Freeman, Furbank, James. Cons: Biggar 3.
Pen: Biggar.