London Scottish travelled to the Stoop for the second this season to face Harlequins for the third time since the start of the campaign. With two very competitive meetings under their belts, and a lot of history between the players with so many pulling in the respective team’s colours, they knew what to expect.

Both sides largely cancelled each other out in the opening half of the match. With so much knowledge of each other a desire to get stuck in neither were willing to give an inch. Eventually though the professionalism and quality of Harlequins shone through to score the opening try through the driving maul with London Scottish down to 14 men.

However, this setback galvanised the Exiles and they controlled the sin bin period, not letting Harlequins take advantage. Working territory and possession to give them an attack in the 22. Thanks to some great interplay between Jonny Law and Noah Ferdinand the latter flew through the middle of the defence for the score just and to take the lead with the extras from Tom Wilstead.

Sadly, Quins would hit straight back taking advantage of Scottish ill discipline for a score right on the break once again using their power to muscle over the line. This trend continue after the break as Scottish lost control of the match for a period and Quins showed their class.

Running in three quick tries in succession put the game beyond the Exiles despite some manful attempts to stay in the hunt.

The final quarter allowed London Scottish to fight back into the match and score a lovely try from Alec Lloyd-Seed scything through the defence, however, this was not enough to overturn the deficit.

However, the Exiles should be proud of a performance that tested a full time Premiership opposition away from home and take this experience into the coming weeks and months.