Harlequins demolish Newcastle as the Red Bulls stay in bottom position, Gallagher PREM updates

After an extremely disappointing run last weekend, Harlequins were able to regain some of their dignity with a landslide victory 52 - 14 over the Newcastle Red Bulls.

Harlequins vs Newcastle Red Bulls match report

Not only was it a particularly special fixture for Tyrone Green, who celebrated his 100^th appearance for Quins, but he came away with a brace of tries.

The victory was secured from the very start as Harlequins managed to cement the bonus point within the first half hour after barrelling across the line four times. Luke Northmore opened the scoreboard with a try in the 11^th minute, before Green followed with his first try just minutes later.

Marcus Smith was unflinchingly accurate with his conversion as the Quins points continued to rack up in an almost unstoppable display of rugby dominance.

Harlequins were captivating to watch, capitalising on every minute that they had with the ball in their possession. After a flustered performance against the Exeter Chiefs last week, Smith was back to his established best - a happy sight with the Autumn Internationals just around the corner.

At the hour mark, the score read 52 - 0 and Harlequins victory seemed nothing other than inevitable. Although they did not enjoy the same spree of tries that they pulled off in the first half, they still steadily worked towards gaining as big a lead as possible, as both Cassius Cleaves and George Turner scored tries of their own.

Red Bulls' final efforts

However, despite not being in with a chance of snatching the win from the hosts, the Newcastle Red Bulls were able to move into a different gear as the clock ticked closer and closer to 80 minutes.

In the last five minutes, both Ollie Leatherbrow and Murray McCallum were able to finally break through the Harlequins defence and tot up Newcastle’s first points of the whole match - a much needed cushion to protect at least some of the Red Bull’s pride, who have had a shocking start to the season thus far.

This is the latest in a string of significant defeats for the Newcastle side, who will be going into the international break trying to work out why they are falling so short of their opponents, despite such significant financial investment from their new owners Red Bull.

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