Chris Robshaw will be back at The Stoop on Sunday to take a first-hand look at his embattled Harlequins as they face the Stormers in the Champions Cup.
In recent weeks, watching Quins has resembled rubber-necking at an accident scene. For Robshaw, who played for the club for 16 years, four successive league defeats by increasingly uncomfortable scorelines have been hard to take.
The 66-21 defeat at Northampton last weekend laid bare the extent of their problems. They missed 59 tackles in that game. Quins have conceded 23 tries in their past three matches which, even by free-scoring Prem standards, is outlandish. Something is going badly wrong.
“That’s the thing – the losses have been big haven’t they?” said Robshaw. “When you lose by a handful of points it’s obviously tough to take but you can see you’re not a million miles away. When you are conceding 60 or getting nilled… it has been tough for the club. It’s not a nice place to be, I’m sure.
“It is a young-ish side and the coaching staff have to pick them up and give them some confidence because that will definitely have slipped over the last couple of weeks unfortunately.”
The nosedive is so steep, the brittleness so acute, it is not entirely fanciful to picture a scenario where Harlequins finish bottom of the Prem this season. They lie eighth out of ten, five points above last-placed Newcastle who celebrated their first win of the league campaign last weekend and who they still have to visit in May.
Whether that woeful worst-case scenario comes to pass or not, this season represents an embarrassing level of underperformance for a club which, unlike others, spends up to the salary cap.
Any side would miss Esterhuizen. He was the real difference. He was the guy who would get Marcus Smith out of trouble, get the side back on the front foot.
Cash is not the problem in Southwest London; value for money definitely is.
The club’s chief executive Laurie Dalrymple and chairman David Morgan co-authored an emergency statement on Sunday, acknowledging the dissatisfaction of everyone connected with Quins with the current state of affairs.
Dalrymple subsequently expanded on it to The Times’ Ruck podcast, citing various off-field factors including the coaching churn at the club in recent seasons and issues with the academy pipeline for the situation they find themselves in.
It certainly did not help losing head coach Danny Wilson to Wales days before the start of the new season. More relevant though would seem to be the gaps exposed by failures in recruitment and retention.
The Quins hierarchy could not do much about the retirements of Danny Care and Joe Marler but other exits appear more careless. You only really appreciate someone’s value when they leave and Will Collier’s exit to Castres 18 months ago removed a scrum cornerstone.
There have been other significant losses such as Wilco Louw, Irne Herbst and Nathan Jibulu, who has thrived since his move at Sale. One departure in particular sticks out for Robshaw.
“They miss Andre Esterhuizen,” he said. “Any side would miss him. He was the real difference. He was the guy who would get Marcus (Smith) out of trouble, get the side back on the front foot and take the pressure off the forwards. He has been irreplaceable.”
Without Esterhuizen, who left at the end of the 2023/24 season, Quins are as short on punch in their backline as they are up front.
It makes for a hard life for Smith, whose defensive slip against Sale which presented Raffi Quirke with the Sharks’ seventh try, represents the perfect meme for the moment.
Robshaw feels sympathy for him.
Whether a side is known for throwing the ball around or not, they still need a solid set-piece and they need to be physical. I just feel they have slipped a little bit away on both those fronts.
“He is the heartbeat of that side – the talent of that guy is phenomenal – but he can’t do things alone. Any 10 in the world needs some good ball,” said the former England captain.
“Whether a side is known for throwing the ball around or not, they still need a solid set-piece and they need to be physical. I just feel they have slipped a little bit away on both those fronts.
“If you don’t have that and you are trying to throw the ball around on the back foot then you can get in a downward spiral.”
A penny for the thoughts of George Furbank who is set to leave Northampton to join Harlequins next season. The signing of Furbank, a high-quality England international, will be a positive for Quins, not least in helping to fill a clear leadership void, but you have to wonder whether they are spending in the right area.
Ball-playing full-backs are all very well but ball-carrying forwards would appear to be more of a priority.
Chandler Cunningham-South carries so much on his shoulders in this area that it is no wonder he is prone to going missing during matches.
“He is capable of changing a game but he is young and young players sometimes don’t have that consistency,” said Robshaw. “This period will be a massive learning curve for him.”
For Jason Gilmore too. The Australian defence coach, promoted to head up the coaching team when Wilson walked out, is on full-scale firefighting duties knowing full well he is likely to be relieved of his position next season – assuming Quins’ current search can dig up a viable alternative.
Gilmore’s admission after the defeat at Sale that Harlequins’ league season was over was criticised as being overly defeatist. Robshaw believes he is right.
“If we’re honest, the Premiership season has gone,” said Robshaw.
“They still have the opportunity to put a bit of pride in their season though in the Champions Cup.
“It’s a different competition and this weekend they are back at The Stoop for the first time in a while in front of fans that will be hurting massively as well. They will want to show the Quins fans that this team is better than they are showing at the moment.
“The Stormers haven’t lost a game in the URC and the Champions Cup so Quins have to come out but I think they will come out. I think this weekend they will put in a good performance.
“I hope they do. I love the club and these are tough times for Quins.”
Chris Robshaw is part of the TV team at Premier Sports – the home of the Investec Champions Cup across the UK and Ireland with every match live including 21 EPCR Challenge Cup games and all the knock-out stages and finals. Tune into Premier Sports 1 from 12.45pm on Sunday for coverage of Harlequins’ Champions Cup clash with DHL Stormers live from The Stoop in Twickenham. Big games. Bigger moments – visit www.premiersports.com to join in from just £11.99 a month @PremSports.tv
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