QUINS SURVIVE A CARE SCARE
Harlequins 41 Northampton 32
BOSS Danny Wilson admitted Danny Care dodged a red card as Harlequins kept their play-off hopes alive. A crazy game of 10 tries and three yellow cards, all for the Londoners, ended with Northampton still top and odds-on for the play-offs and Quins level on points with fourth-placed Bristol in fifth.
But Quins were fortunate not to lose scrum-half
Care to a red card when he escaped a stone-cold second yellow.
Care took out opposite number Alex Mitchell at a ruck with Saints on the attack and should have been in the bin.
His first-half yellow for a head-on-head clash with Courtney
Lawes would have made that an automatic red and he was replaced immediately afterwards.
Care knew he had got away with one and had a wry smile on his face as he jogged off the pitch on 62 minutes.
TV pundit and former England star Lawrence Dallaglio was pitch side and told Care his yellow was a stonewall card but referee Karl Dickson did not agree.
Will Porter, Care’s replacement, scored two tries but Wilson revealed he was relieved the veteran nine had not been dismissed.
Wilson said: “Yes, if I am honest. I am not saying he deserved one, I am just saying you are at the hands of the referee and it was an incident that could have gone against Danny and us.
“We were planning immediately, if it was a yellow, worst-case scenario what were we going to do to getwill Porter on and somebody off? But thank God, it wasn’t that and we held on.”
Quins won another helter-skelter game of Premiership rugby, riding their luck as almost every decision went their way despite yellows for Care, Louis Lynagh and Tyrone
Green. Saints now have to go to Dublin next week to face Leinster in the Champions Cup whilst Quins head to Toulouse.
Northampton boss Phil Dowson said: “The underlying feeling is frustration, we didn’t quite get it right today.
“We have to be a lot better if we want to go to Croke Park and get in amongst it.”