Marcus Smith has been told he cannot dwell on Harlequins’ agonising European exit if he and the club wish to retain their domestic Premiership crown this season. Quins are due to host the league leaders Leicester this weekend and their senior coach Tabai Matson is urging the England fly-half to shake off last weekend’s disappointment as swiftly as possible.
Matson has revealed his players were so gutted about their one-point aggregate defeat against Montpellier that afternoon training this week was replaced by a light-hearted game of cricket to bolster morale. Smith was as disappointed as anyone having missed a crucial late conversion but his coaches have challenged him to bounce back immediately.
“If you’re as successful a goal-kicker and game leader as him you just can’t dwell on things for too long,” Matson said. “You have to be good at bouncing back and we did have that conversation. He moves on really quickly which is an important trait for someone in his position and with the lot of responsibility we give him.”
Quins are confident, though, that the 23-year-old will ultimately be the better for the experience. “I don’t think anyone who’s become world class has had an easy ride,” said Matson. “Exits like this are things to learn from.
“You forget he’s played more than 100 games of Premiership rugby and all the other accolades he’s got. All those experiences are really important and what you want him to do is learn from them, whether that’s for a big Test match for England or for us in the playoffs in a couple of months, hopefully.”
Matson, meanwhile, is not a great fan of the current European structure which has seen Montpellier advance to the last eight despite winning only two games in this season’s tournament. “Ultimately we won five games and they won two. It’s not sour grapes, they were better than us over the last two games so they deserved to go through.
“But it does make the first part of pool play farcical if they can get two cracks at it. A team that comes first in the league plays the team that comes eighth and there’s really no advantage other than that you get to play at home in the second leg. That’s not really an advantage.”
Dean Richards is set to switch to a less prominent role at Newcastle at the end of the season after 10 years as the Falcons’ director of rugby and previous stints in charge at Harlequins and Leicester.
“I’ve been doing it for 25 years or so and it’s been a long haul, to be honest,” said Richards. “At the same time I’m still keen as mustard, and still enjoy the sport and the match days more than anything. If I’ve got anything to announce, I’ll tell you one day.”
