Derby Disaster

For once Quins didn't manage to pull off a last gasp win as Irish secured a deserved 22-19 win at the Stoop - only their second of the season.

Some may say it was a mistake to rest Marcus Smith and Alex Dombrandt and the home cause wasn't helped when Tommy Allan went off in the first half with a shoulder injury, followed by  Luke Northmore in the second.

 We were leading 14-10 at the break thanks to tries from Oscar Beard (left) and Northmore, but Irish came back with tries from Angus Creevy, Rob Simmons and Ben White. For once our ability to score the winning points in the closing minutes failed us with Irish whooping and hollering as we were penalised  while looking for at least a penalty shot to draw the game.

Tabai Matson told the media: "We'll have a really good look at our kick-offs when we score points as in the first half, we exited really poorly and let them score and get back into the game.

"We just didn't get the rhythm today and a lot of it was just the guys not having played together for a couple of weeks.

"There's a long uninterrupted stretch of games now so hopefully we can start to build that momentum again."