Harlequins vs Saracens match report: Quins hold out to inflict shock defeat on London rivals

Harlequins 17 Saracens 10: A measure of the scale of the surprise was that this was a first loss in 32 successive starts for Saracens’ Maro Itoje

Harlequins celebrate their victory at the final whistle (Getty)

Wales centre Jamie Roberts and former England captain Chris Robshaw were at the heart of a stunning defensive effort by Harlequins as they repeated last season’s shock Premiership win over their London rivals at the Stoop.

On this weekend a year ago Robshaw’s England were losing a pivotal World Cup pool match to Roberts’ Wales over the road at Twickenham but they were brothers in arms here as Quins showed the rest of the league that the champions are beatable. The home side snatched two contrasting tries to lead 17-0 in the opening quarter and somehow clung on to inflict only Saracens’ second loss in the last 10 meetings of the capital clubs.

A measure of the scale of the surprise was that this was a first loss in 32 successive starts for Saracens’ Maro Itoje although the young second row may consider Harlequins his bogey team now, as his solitary defeat with club or country last season was coming off the bench in the 29-23 result on this ground in January - a match in which Sarries had prop Rhys Gill sent off.

Jamie Roberts was in fine form for the home side both (Getty)

This was Harlequins’ first home match of the current season after their narrow squeak of a two-point win over Bristol was played as part of the London Double-Header at nearby HQ.

Since then Quins had lost at Sale and Exeter, while Saracens had opened serenely with victories over Worcester, Exeter and Northampton.

But fly-half Tim Swiel got the ball rolling for Harlequins with a penalty in the fourth minute, with the home team’s England prop Joe Marler already off for the afternoon after taking a bang on the head in a tackle on Billy Vunipola. There were other Quins who would have a great deal more success against the hefty England No.8 before the match was out.

A minute after Swiel’s kick, Harlequins scored an opportunistic try. Alex Lozowski has rightly received rave reviews for his performances as the injured Owen Farrell’s stand-in wearing Sarries’ No.10 jersey so far this season. But there was a wobble from Lozowski as a wrap-around move in midfield was cleverly anticipated by Tim Visser and Quins’ Scotland wing intercepted Lozowsksi’s pass for a 50-metre run-in. The Somerset-born, South African-raised Swiel added the conversion for 10-0.

When a brilliant long pass by Swiel off his left hand helped make a try for Charlie Walker – neither player might have started if first choices Nick Evans and Marland Yarde had been fit – an excellent conversion by Swiel had the Stoop in raptures.

Karl Dickson of Harlequins kicks for touch (Getty)

But if anything the key period was yet to come in the first half. Saracens somehow went scoreless during an incredible spell of 10 minutes spent camped in the home 22, with a series of five-metre scrums ending in re-sets, free-kicks or penalties, until there was one final warning meted out to Quins’ captain Danny Care by referee Craig Maxwell-Keys that a yellow card or penalty try was imminent.

Saracens may feel Quins were treated too leniently but Maxwell-Keys had shown a similar degree of laxity up the other end, earlier on.

When Care’s immensely gutsy tackle cut down Vunipola as he charged for the goalline, it replicated a previous effort on the same player by Swiel, and with a fumble in possession, Sarries lost the position and went into the break without a score to their name.

Less than two minutes into the second half, Saracens got a belated foothold when the suspended Chris Ashton’s replacement Mike Ellery danced down the right, gathered his own kick and offloaded nicely for Richard Wigglesworth to score, and Lozowski to add the conversion.

Billy Vunipola is stopped in his tracks by the Harlequins defence (Getty)

Saracens piled on the pressure with positional kicks, and the watching England head coach Eddie Jones saw some superb broken-field running from the visiting full-back Alex Goode, opposite the national team’s incumbent, Mike Brown.

Brown eventually switched to the wing as Quins suffered injuries including the influential Care going off. But all Saracens’ late pressure yielded only a penalty goal kicked by substitute scrum-half Ben Spencer, after both Swiel and Lozowski had hit the post from long range, and Lozowski, crucially in the 68th minute, missed another kick from about 40 metres out.

Scorers:

Harlequins - Tries: Visser, Walker; Conversions: Swiel 2; Penalty: Swiel.

Saracens - Try: Wigglesworth; Conversion: Lozowski; Penalty: Spencer.

Harlequins: M Brown; C Walker (A Alofa 51), M Hopper (R Jackson 68), J Roberts, T Visser; T Swiel, D Care (capt; K Dickson 48); J Marler (M Lambert 1), R Buchanan (J Gray 48), W Collier (K Sinckler 48), G Merrick (S Twomey 68), J Horwill, C Robshaw, L Wallace, J Chisholm.

Saracens: A Goode; M Ellery, M Bosch (N Tompkins 64), B Barritt (capt), C Wyles; A Lozowski, R Wigglesworth (B Spencer 66); M Vunipola (R Barrington 66), S Brits (J George 41), P du Plessis (J Figallo 41), M Itoje, J Hamilton, M Rhodes (K Brown 59), J Wray, B Vunipola.

Referee: C Maxwell-Keys (RFU).