Quins' march hit by injuries

Injuries are threatening to cast a shadow over Harlequins' best start to a Zurich Premiership season for a decade.

A hard-fought 18-11 victory against Newcastle Falcons at The Stoop on Saturday, the fourth win in five league games for Quins, came at a price with hooker Ace Tiatia and centres Mel Deane and Josh Taumalolo all limping out of the action.

Tiatia lasted only until the 16th minute when he pulled a calf muscle while both Deane and Taumalolo went off with hamstring injuries. And Quins' backline resources look like being stretched even further over the coming fortnight as George Harder, the powerful Samoan, is now expected to be sidelined for three more weeks with the knee ligament damage sustained against Rotherham on 20 September.

The next two Saturdays see Quins again at home to both Gloucester and Sale Sharks, important games at this stage of the season. In second place behind early pacesetters Bath, Quins know that they have a great opportunity to steal a march on the rest of the Premiership during the World Cup period.

Mark Evans, the Harlequins head coach, said: "This is a very confrontational league and there are no easy matches. Every week brings a hard game.

"But I'm very pleased with our start and the way we dogged out another win. Newcastle put us under a lot of pressure but we defended well. In attack, we didn't get the quality of ball - again that was partially down to Newcastle's own good defence."