CARE’S RED MISS
Smirking Danny gets away with one as Quins edge to victory
DANNY CARE was at the centre of a red card storm as Harlequins rode their luck and kept their top four hopes alive.
The veteran scrum-half escaped a sending off when referee Karl Dickson, a former Quin himself, refused to hand him a second yellow on the hour of this win.
Care had already had one sin-binning, in the first half, for a head-on-head challenge with Courtney Lawes and a second one would have been an automatic red.
With Saints on the attack in the 62nd minute, Care took opposite number Alex Mitchell out, but escaped a card and was immediately replaced by Will Porter. Veteran Care knew he had got away with one as he jogged off the pitch with a smirk.
Lawrence Dallaglio was pitchside on TV duty, and said it was a stonewall yellow card and Quins head coach Danny Wilson admitted he was preparing for the worst.
Wilson said: ‘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, worse case scenario what were we going to do to get Will Porter on and somebody off? But thank God, it wasn’t that and we held on.’
Quins also had Louis Lynagh and Tyrone Green sin-binned and director of rugby Phil Dowson blamed his side’s defeat on their inability to break down 14 men rather than the Care let-off.
They head to Dublin next weekend to face Leinster in the Champions Cup semifinals whilst Quins travel to Toulouse.
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.
‘They defended well and took some time out of the game when they were down to 14 and we didn’t convert any of that pressure.’
Quins led 19-13 at the break but Northampton regained the lead just after Care’s substitution. Two tries from Porter killed it off as a contest however, but Lawes’s late score grabbed a bonus point. Saints would have had two points but for a late Jarrod Evans penalty.