Just as it has with full-backs lately, England’s competition is becoming suffocatingly intense in the back row. James Haskell ratcheted up the pressure still higher with a relentless defensive performance against two rivals for the national shirt – Chris Robshaw, the national captain, and Nick Easter, widely touted for a return, both of whom were superb, albeit in attack.
Those three alone would make for a mightily effective England back row. If Wasps’ Haskell is to force his way into the starting line-up, it may be because he has stopped worrying about his form. “I promise you I don’t think about England,” he said. “Look what happened to Ben Morgan. You never know what is going to happen and so I really don’t worry about it because you can spend your whole career trying to play to what coaches want and come unstuck. All you can do is play well for your club and England will come and look for you. You don’t look for England.”
The old adage “stop looking and you will find it” applies as much to form on the rugby field as it does to the love of your life and socks.
Harlequins would do well to heed it. Their search for tries – to the exclusion of all else – became obsessive. It has already done for them a few times. The defeats to Saracens at The Stoop earlier this season, then to Northampton at Twickenham before Christmas fit neatly into the tradition of this mugging. Overwhelming possession and territory, and heightening levels of mania when it does not work, havenow become a chronic pattern they cannot afford to ignore.
They are not out of the reckoning for the quarter-finals yet but the focus now shifts to Coventry where Wasps are expecting 20,000 at their new home for the visit of Leinster. “It will be massive,” said Haskell, “what dreams are made of. They’ve sold 15,000. It’s a huge, huge occasion.”
If Wasps can rouse themselves to win that they will become the first team to win a pool in Europe having lost their first two games. Qualification is entering its complicated stage now. Eighteen points may prove enough for a best runners-up spot – it is possible 17 could do it. Leinster have 18 already, Wasps 16 and Harlequins 13.
Having started the weekend top of the pool, Harlequins must rack up a cricket score against Castres to give themselves any chance of progression. Points difference, rather than tries, is now the tie-breaker. If Quins can win in Castres with a bonus point and Leinster lose with nothing at Wasps, Quins take second, courtesy of a superior points difference in the games between the two. If Quins and Wasps end up level Wasps will take second for the same reason. Then it is over to the lottery of what happens in other pools.
Harlequins Brown; Yarde, Hopper, Lowe, Williams (Evans, 60); Botica (Walker, 55), Care; Marler (capt), Gray (Buchanan, 59), Collier (Marfo, 78), Matthews (Twomey, 73), Robson, Clifford (J Chisholm, 70), Robshaw, Easter.
Pen Botica.
Wasps Miller; Wade, Daly, Leiua (Jacobs, 70), Varndell; Goode, Simpson; Mullan (McIntyre, 70), Shervington (Festuccia, 60), Cittadini (Cooper-Woolley, 51), Davies, Myall (Gaskell, 35), Johnson (Thompson, 65), Haskell, Hughes.
Tries Wade, Simpson. Cons Goode 2. Pens Goode 2, Daly.
Sin-bin Hughes.
Referee N Owens (Wales). Att 14,132.
