John Kingston has hailed his Harlequins side for picking themselves up from the "debris" of their Heineken Cup campaign.
Quins boss praises side for bouncing back
Harlequins head coach John Kingston hailed his side for picking themselves up from the "debris" of their unhappy Heineken Cup campaign to prevail over London Irish.
Quins fell 45-20 to Cardiff Blues last weekend to mark their six successive defeat, but it was a different story at the Madjeski Stadium on Sunday.
A converted try from teenage winger Sam Smith and three penalties from Nick Evans helped them secure a 16-13 win over the Exiles.
The win in the LV= Cup gives Kingston's side a real chance of reaching the semi-finals of the Anglo-Welsh tournament.
Choices
"We identified from last week's debris that we had two choices," he said.
"One was to carry on feeling sorry for ourselves and allow our season to drift by but we identified how long there was left of the season, down to the number of days, and what we can achieve is still a huge amount.
"We can only deal with what's going forward and we talked all week about this being the first day of the rest of our season and to that end it's a good start.
"I was really pleased with the defensive statement of the group."
Kingston praised the efforts of 19-year-old Smith, who scored the crucial first-half try to put Harlequins into a healthy position.
"He's a strong lad with a lot of confidence at the moment," the Quins boss added.
"He scored seven tries in those two games and I'm pleased to see him coming through - but he's one of several."
Surprised
The defeat ruined Exiles' chances of advancing to the knockout stages, and head coach Toby Booth admitted he was surprised his side had not seen more in the way of points following their solid scrummaging display.
"You have to look at opportunities missed," he admitted.
"Quins have obviously done quite a lot of work defensively and we tested that defence to the ultimate today and I'm sure they're very pleased. We stretched them quite considerably and they were equal to the task.
"I'm not happy with the level of finishing from the amount of possession we had but we scrummaged exceptionally well and I'm surprised we didn't get a little bit more reward."
