By George Davis
Danny Wilson calls on his side to “focus on the task in hand” ahead of a big Premiership game against Bristol Bears at The Stoop. Harlequins need to pick up five points and hope that Exeter don’t pick up more than four against Leicester, while also needing Sale to not come away from The StoneX with more than just one point as well.
The Bears are also in the hunt, and if they can do what Quins are trying to do, with other results going their way, they will take that last top four place. Wilson knows this, and therefore expects a high scoring encounter on Saturday.
“I think the first thing is if you look around the prep for both teams, you see what’s at stake, both teams need a five-point win, so both teams need to score four tries.
“Thats our approach all the time and I think that’s been Bristol’s approach from whenever they made the change as they have certainly made one comparing the way they played at the start of the season to the way they are playing now,” said Wilson.
“It’s been successful for them, they have gone back to the Bristol of old, they are playing a lot of rugby, like us there is a high-risk element attached to that.
“It’s exciting and what people want to watch but the risk and reward is that if you get it wrong it leaves yourself quite exposed.
“So, it will be two teams going head-to-head in similar styles, maybe different ways of doing it but similar ways,” added the Head Coach.
“But Bristol are different (To Bordeaux), they play a different way, and we will have to prepare slightly differently. We will still be us; we will still be Quins.”
Bristol will look to bounce back as they were the form team in the league before a disappointing loss to Saracens last time out.
But they have still shown they can be a threat this season, putting 85 points on Newcastle a few weeks ago.
“There are elements of our game that we will need to adjust to deal with Bristol,” added Wilson.
“One example of it being how often they run from deep, and how they create those opportunities.”
However, Harlequins have also shown they can put plenty of points on the board as well, and Danny Wilson knows this.
“There are maybe some teams who struggle to get those bonus points.
“But every now and then you kind of have to take one on the chin and admit that it might hurt you at the other end of the field, but it isn’t going to change because it has been far more successful than not for us,” revealed the 47-year-old.
“For us our point zone attack, red zone attack as a lot of people call it, has proved a point that we can score.
“Some of that comes from penalties, some of that comes off line breaks to get into those entries, attacking from the middle third and once we get those entries on the whole, we have been pretty good at converting but so are Bristol.
“Bristol’s conversion rate and ours is very, very similar in terms of that kind of point zone attack.
“It means both teams are very dangerous in that area to attack those defences so that is a big challenge this weekend.
“Last week we scored four tries, but we only had three out and out entries into the 22, they (Exeter) had eleven.
“Our conversion rate was higher than Exeter’s would you believe, we just had nowhere near as many entries to rack up as many points.”
“Conversion rate is one thing, entries is another, we need to get into their 22, whether that is off line breaks, penalties whatever, to be able to give ourselves a chance.”