'We owe our fans': Under pressure Harlequins ring changes for Sharks

Harlquins scrumhalf Will Porter says it’s “us versus the world” as Jason Gilmore makes eight changes for Sunday afternoon’s trip to Sale Sharks, with England fly-half Marcus Smith making his first appearance of the season.

Gilmore recalls Smith for his 198th appearance in a Quins shirt after a finger injury, while Luke Northmore and Tyrone Green start in the back line, and Sam Riley starts at hooker and tighthead Simon Kerrod after last week’s 48-0 thrashing by Gloucester.

Irish international Kieran Treadwell starts in the engine room, Seb Driscoll returns at openside, and Chandler Cunningham-South starts at the back of the scrum.

Quins legend Ugo Monye described the hammering at Kingsholm, their heaviest league defeat in 26 years, which left them bottom of the Gallagher PREM table, as “one of the worst performances I have ever seen”.

But scrum-half Porter says that they won’t let outside noise come and break up the team and knows that they owe Quins fans a performance in the North-West.

“You have a decision to make in those moments whether you’re going to let the outside noise come in and break up as a team or you’re going to come together, use it almost as motivation to move on.

“We’re very early in the season and looking at our PREM Cup and our preseason games. Those were great building blocks for us, even our performance against Bath the week before; though we didn’t win, we could take a lot of positives away from how we attacked and stuff.

“So we can’t just let one week undo 12 or 13 weeks of work. So we understand the result (against Gloucester), but again, we’re not going to let it undo weeks and weeks of work, which we’re really confident in.

“We owe our fans, who are amazing when it comes to travelling to support us at home games. We owe them a good performance. We want to fire shots and play the Harlequins’ way, which is an entertaining brand of rugby and is threatening from anywhere.

“We’re going up for Sale, fully confident that we can get the result, and we’re going to fire as many shots as we can. And hopefully get the result.

“From a player’s perspective, you try and just stick clear of outside noise, if I must. Obviously, it’s never nice to hear stuff like that, but I think it can be great fuel to use in terms of really getting fired up for this weekend.

“[It] Almost brings the team together. It’s us versus the world, and we’re happy we’re having that mindset. We want to change people’s perception of us, and I think getting some results this weekend will do it

Harlequins: George Furbank, Tyrone Green, Luke Northmore, Bryn Bradley, Cadan Murley (c), Marcus Smith, Will Porter, Will Hobson, Sam Riley, Simon Kerrod, James Dun, Kieran Treadwell, Jack Kenningham, Seb Driscoll, Chandler Cunningham-South.

Replacements: Jack Walker, Harry Johnson-Holmes, Ollie Streeter, Guido Petti Pagadizábal, Lucas Schmid, Lucas Friday, Oscar Beard, Rodrigo Isgró