Jack Kenningham achieves career first in big win over Stormers

Jack Kenningham revealed that the Player of the Match award given to him after Harlequins’ 61-10 demolition job on the Stormers was the first in his senior professional career.

Several other players could have got the medal as the Londoners put their troubles in the Gallagher PREM behind them to qualify for the last 16 of the Investec Champions Cup with a round to spare.

But Kenningham got the nod after an all-action display in which he scored the first of Harlequins’ nine tries and beat three defenders and made 11 carries.

“It’s amazing. I think it is about 84 appearances there or thereabouts, so I took my time getting one! But I am over the moon with the performance and this is like the cherry on top,” the flanker told Premier Sports post-match.

The thumping win comes a week after the club put out a statement acknowledging that recent results haven’t been good enough and Kenningham was delighted that they were able to show their quality.

“The last few weeks have hurt us. We know that the Champions Cup is a competition that we can really get after, after a strong start, and that has put us in a really good position after today’s result, so we are over the moon with that.

“But we can’t lose sight of where we are at the moment and we have to use that as momentum going forward.”

Harlequins are second behind Leinster in the Pool 3 standings, on 11 points, and have La Rochelle left to play.

“It’s going to be a tough game next week at La Rochelle. I watched them against Leinster yesterday and they were excellent and unlucky not to win. So we have got a big challenge ahead of us, but it is something we can get really excited for and go after,” added Kenningham.