Quins’ mental resilience bears fruit for fourth win
PAUL Gustard hailed Harlequins’ mental resilience after they recovered from a poor start to record a fourth straight Premiership win with a 36-26 success against Bristol Bears.
The visitors scored a try in the 12th minute through Charles Piutau and their early dominance of possession threatened to shock in-form Quins.
But the hosts took advantage of their opposition’s mistakes to score four first-half tries and gain a bonus-point victory overall.
Gustard admitted his side were poor in the opening exchanges but was pleased with the way they rectified earlier mistakes by scoring a flurry of tries – including a club record-equalling score for Mike Brown, who pulled level with Ugo Monye on 89 tries in the professional era.
Gustard said: “I wasn’t happy about the start but we rectified things and scored four tries of our own and we set ourselves the chance to be ruthless in the second half.
“I think we had 11 turnovers today which showed our defensive resilience but it wasn’t a game of two halves as some may have been suggesting. I’m not here for the first half to look like the second half, I’m here to try and win and we did win, we got five points and they got one.”
Gustard was also full of praise for tryscorers Joe Marchant, who is the club’s leading scorer this season with 11, and Nathan Earle, who has now scored seven in the league campaign.
“We’ve got two very fine players, playing well and working hard,” said the Quins head coach.
“Nathan’s been one of our stand-out players this season and him and Joe Marchant are knocking on the door for England obviously.
“They’ve both got talent but the work ethic is something I’m really pleased about.”
Bristol Bears head coach Pat Lam took the positives out of the defeat and was proud of the way his players fought in the second half to get a bonus point themselves.
The Bears remain the only winless side away from home in the league this season and have only two victories in their last 10 matches.
But Lam said the extra point his side got was one of many positives to take into a set of difficult fixtures, starting against Gloucester next Friday.
Lam said: “It showed a lot of character from the boys, particularly from the guys who came on did really well and executed nicely.
“That extra point is crucial, so that’s a real positive and there’s lot of other positives in the game.
“This side [Harlequins] is one of the top three or four and to come here and feel like we gifted them some soft tries again but really ran them close.”