Jason Gilmore and Mark McCall hail Marcus Smith for starring Harlequins role

Marcus Smith drew praise from both coaches after the England playmaker kicked Harlequins to their first Gallagher Prem win of the season in a 20-14 defeat of Saracens at The Stoop.

Smith ran in the first of his side’s two tries, but his bigger contribution was orchestrating the aerial assault which gave Quins a huge territorial advantage and forced previously unbeaten Saracens to field a host of tricky, contestable kicks.

It was Smith’s first appearance since the British and Irish Lions tour and his return made all the difference following losses to Bath and Leicester in the opening two rounds.

“Marcus is a Lion. His job in our team is to give us game management and to put us into good field positions,” senior coach Jason Gilmore said.

“We’ve probably struggled with that in the last two weeks, which cost us both of those games.”

The capital derby produced a total of 59 kicks out of hand, with Harlequins responsible for 32 of them.

The club’s reputation has been forged on a high-risk attacking game, so their tactics against Saracens represented a significant change in direction.

“Was it Quins? I’m not sure, but it was certainly a different way to win a game of football,” Gilmore said.

“I don’t think it’ll be something you’ll see in our game regularly. We are Harlequins and we want to use the ball and we want to be scoring four tries a game. That’s our DNA.

“Last season we were way too up and down. The consistency wasn’t enough to compete for trophies. We know our good is good, but our bad last season was bad.”

Saracens boss Mark McCall was impressed by the accuracy of Smith’s kicking and admitted his team had been caught by surprise by the extent of the aerial bombardment they faced.

“I’d say we got what we deserved, but we didn’t because we got a losing bonus point. We were lucky to get that. Quins were by far the better team,” McCall said.

“They dominated territory and had a very strong kicking game, and we didn’t cope well with it. That affected the rest of our game and the rest of our energy and intent.

“Marcus kicked beautifully and put us under pressure. We probably didn’t prepare the team in the way we should have for what came and that’s obviously my fault.

“But we expect the playing group to react better to that than we did. We then lost intent in all the important things. It’s not a performance we can be proud of.

“The way the rules are the moment and when you get a kicker like Marcus who put everything on the money and it’s properly contestable, it’s very hard to be the person who is catching. They did a great job of being in the air and being in the eye line.

“They also picked up a lot of the crumbs and the scraps when the ball went loose. Credit to them, they came with a plan and executed it really well.”

McCall revealed that captain Maro Itoje should return from concussion for Saturday’s match against Sale.