Christmas is a time for giving and Bayonne presented this game to Harlequins by selecting an inexperienced side who realistically stood no chance. Manu Tuilagi and Gareth Anscombe were listed as injured, along with several others, but key players were rested too. There was nothing wrong with Bayonne giving Jonah Thompson, a 20-year-old Australian, his professional debut against rugby royalty in south-west London: but the fact he is a flanker, and was pressed into service on the right wing, was pushing it a bit far.
The Champions Cup is supposedly an elite competition and that should be celebrated whenever appropriate. But the current format means too many clubs are selecting weakened sides for matches they regard as unwinnable – or rather, when there are several others they think are more winnable. It is a problem, and it is short-changing fans. Quins scored 10 tries, nine of them converted by Marcus Smith, the player of the match, but it rarely felt like they were obliged to change up from second gear in polishing their points difference in Pool 3.
The hosts may have enjoyed a present or two from their opponents before kick-off, but initially proved incapable of holding on to their own ball when it counted. There was pace and tempo in the first quarter, along with handling errors from the likes of Luke Northmore and Oscar Beard.
It was Smith who injected a bit of quality, dabbing a grubber kick for captain Cadan Murley to score on 22 minutes. Thompson, the debutant, had demonstrated his lack of experience on the wing by fumbling an early box kick. Now Tom Spring, the young fly-half, utterly failed to read a cross-kick from Smith, allowing the second-row Kieran Treadwell to pouch it and gallop over the line, four minutes after coming on as a replacement. Fin Baxter soon capitalised on more weak defending to dart over. That was 21-0 – apparently game over – unless the visitors could muster a comeback like Glasgow Warriors’ magnificent effort against Toulouse and Antoine Dupont.
When Spring chased a kick over the top, though, the Argentinian Lucas Paulos crashed over, with the offside Will Evans shown a yellow card by the referee, Andrew Brace. At 21-7 and with Quins a man down, the threat of a contest hung in the air, before the prop Pedro Delgado surged over for his first Harlequins try with the final play of the half. They had a try bonus to go with the one they claimed against Leinster last weekend.
After the break, Quins were still a man down, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way they drove a maul close to the line and the scrum-half Will Porter darted over in the corner. Smith added a fifth conversion, and that was 35-7.
Spring’s lively running led to a second Bayonne try when he jinked over on the right wing having accepted a beautiful one-handed offload by the hooker, Lucas Martin. Porter added another try, the Quins wing Cassius Cleaves burned over for the seventh try, while the appearance of Chandler Cunningham-South off the home bench was a contrast to the teenagers being introduced by Bayonne.
Baptiste Heguy was the second visiting player to be sent to the sin-bin, leaving them with 13 for a minute, and another Quins replacement, Sam Riley, powered over from a driving maul on 64 minutes, then repeated the trick four minutes later. Jamie Benson ran in try number nine, Thompson’s lack of positional experience again left hopelessly exposed. The Australian should have a bright future, and none of this is his fault. The Ireland international Treadwell made it 10 tries, his first-ever for the club having rejoined from Ulster. But it was long since over by then.
