The Big Game remains one of the feats and fixtures of the festive season, consistently the best attended occasion on the club calendar, even in these times of economic fret. Harlequins’ annual jaunt across the Chertsey Road is a reliable day of pomp and pumped-up volume: there were nearly 80,000 in for this 15th edition, those heavy of legs, heads and bellies coaxed out of their stupor for a Christmas feast of rugby even on a wild night of weather.
A Twickenham crowd is rarely a great bastion of diversity but there was at least a youthful feel to affairs, plenty of families joining in the festive fun after lining the streets as the hosts made their way across from the Stoop. The game that followed a vibrant lights and music show was the sort of calorific treat best enjoyed at this time of year, both attacks on top against two defences that have a tendency to leak points.
