The Joy of Harlequins

Sport loves to make a big thing of the mastermind coach. Look at tuchel, taking over at Chelsea from Frank Lampard. No new players, but a refashioned team with clearer tactics, and they go on and win the European Cup. What a difference a mastermind makes.

In rugby, the same is occasionally said, if not quite in such dramatic terms. In recent years there’ve been sudden boosts of achievement (not always sustained) for Gloucester, Wasps and Sale. But the story of Harlequins is something else again. In January they were struggling, and parted company with coach Paul Gustard, not an obvious disaster but not heading upwards either. They didn’t take on a big name replacement. The coaches lower down the pyramid took over the team, and set up a collegial atmosphere in which there was more room for the players to make contributions, and choose a strategy that suited them.

Obviously, this is idealistic nonsense which couldn’t possibly work, except that on Saturday Harlequins became champions, beating the remorseless Exeter juggernaut in a thrilling eventful final having been 31-36 down with fifteen minutes to go. (In the semi-final they were 28-0 down against Bristol, but still won.) The best tribute to why this matters comes from Danny Care. The Harlequins scrum half was putting out his rubbish bins when a motorist slowed down, wound down the window and held up the traffic “to say that was the best game of rugby he had ever seen and that his kids were now playing rugby because of the way we are playing.”