'It Was Needed Obviously' Gilmore sums up Quins season in a sentence

Harlequins head coach Jason Gilmore admitted a win was needed after his side ran in 12 tries to thrash Newcastle 76-17 in the Gallagher Prem.

The first half between the two bottom teams proved to be especially damaging for the hosts as Quins crossed seven times, with Alex Dombrandt, Jamie Benson and Bryn Bradley setting the tone after all scoring in the opening 15 minutes.

Cadan Murley, Sam Riley, Marcus Smith and Will Hobson all touched down to give the visitors a 45-10 lead going into half-time.

After the break, a Benson double ensured the full-back completed his hat-trick and efforts from Luke Northmore, Bradley and Prem debutant Jimmy Staples sealed a fourth league win for Quins.

Fixture

Gallagher Premiership

Newcastle

17 - 76

Full-time

Harlequins

All Stats and Data

The visitors’ last Prem win came in March against Bristol and they arrived at Kingston Park on the back of damaging defeats to Bath and Sale last month.

Reflecting on the game, Gilmore said: “It was needed obviously, I thought our first hour of rugby was really mature and we stuck to the task.

“Probably with the last 20 minutes I was a bit disappointed, we just coughed up the ball a little bit too easy again and ended up tackling and giving away some pens.

“But all in all, I’m obviously happy.

“It’s just a good shot in the arm, we’ve obviously been toiling away with the same group of players.

“Injury-wise, we don’t have much room to rotate at the moment and I reflected back on that Sale game, I thought we just looked really tired and fatigued in that game in particular.

“We had a good rest after that week, starting to get some troops back on the field at the moment.

“I’m just pleased for the boys, they’re putting in so much work.”

Defeat was another disappointing afternoon for Newcastle, who remain rock bottom of the table with three more games to go.

Josh Hodge scored twice either side of the break along with an Adam Brocklebank try and interim head coach Stephen Jones expressed his frustration as the team slipped to a 14th league loss.

“We just spoke about it in the changing rooms, we weren’t happy with our standards today,” he said.

“At half-time we fell off so many tackles, we lost so many collisions and allowed a very good side with the ball like Quins to move us around the park. It was hugely disappointing from our perspective.

“We were honest, we spoke about how we fell short of the standards we set ourselves. It’s about pride in our game.

“We said we’d all have a good, hard look at our performance and make sure that we’re going to Bath in six days time that we improve our standards, make sure we take our learnings on board and make sure our performance has improved.”