Joy for O’Shea after another Quins victory

Harlequins director of rugby Conor O’Shea insists he has to pinch himself when he thinks about the dearth of scrum-half talent at his disposal after Karl Dickson orchestrated his side’s hard-fought Aviva Premiership win over Sale Sharks.

With Danny Care, last weekend’s match winner against Leicester Tigers, on international duty, O’Shea was able to call upon Dickson to guide Quins to a 30-21 victory over bottom side Sale, who rallied late on but just fell short of the bonus point.

Trailing to a Cameron Shepherd try in the first minute, Quins built themselves a 13-7 lead at half-time thanks to a Tom Williams score and eight points from the boot of Ben Botica.

Quick-fire second-half tries from Nick Easter and Charlie Matthews put the game out of sight before late scores from Sharks duo Richie Vernon and Sam Tuitupou gave the scoreline some respectability.

Quins failed to score a fourth try and with it secure another point but O’Shea wasn’t fussed, reserving special praise for No.9 Dickson.

“We’re very lucky to have two scrum-halves of such ability,” said O’Shea.

“When you’re coming here and the team’s scrapping for their lives and you put in a performance it’s very pleasing.

“We gave seven points away at the start, but I thought we absolutely controlled that game the whole way through. The last ten minutes were chaotic but I won’t be reading too much into that.

“We are absolutely delighted with the win. You look at loads of things that you want to improve on and of course we do.

“I’m incredibly happy with the win. We felt coming here that it would be an incredibly tough match, we knew they’d fight tooth and nail for everything.

“It’s a huge win for us. Especially with the players we were missing.

“These are the games that are important, so we’re absolutely chuffed to pieces.”

Follow West London Sport on Twitter
Find us on Facebook