Quins have taught Eddie a lesson in how to attack

SO a season that started with Eddie Jones arguing it was almost impossible to play attractive attacking rugby under the current laws ended with one of the greatest Cup Finals in Rugby history, let alone Premiership history, and a nation falling back in love with the beautiful game.

- BRENDAN GALLAGHER

And all of this after the most staggering month or more of regular season and play-off games with positive attacking rugby to the fore from start to finish.

Pat Lam’s Bristol started it off and over the last couple of months or so Harlequins have picked up the baton and taken the game even further forward.

These two teams are changing English rugby. To beat them at their new all singing, all dancing, Harlem Globetrotters version of the game the opposition have to meet fire with fire. They have to play at an alien pace and take risks they don’t normally think of taking.

Harlequins defy logic but then again they always have. A few years back I was invited to pen their official 150th anniversary history and although a frequent spectator and reporter at The Stoop over many decades, it was a real eye opener to dig deep and discover the true DNA of the club.

They were – and clearly remain – an eclectic distinctive bunch, born to be different, from their eccentric quartered club jerseys over the years to their approach to life and rugby, often in that order. You always feel with Quins players and their legends over the years that they have a life outside of rugby, even in the professional era.

When it works they are brilliant, always have been, from the moment Adrian Stoop virtually invented modern day back play and Wavell Wakefield who did likewise up front.

Innovators always. Will Carling and Brian Moore were trailblazers for the professional era, Marcus Smith is showing us what a really attacking English fly-half looks like and Danny Care and Joe Marler seem to have discovered some elixir that enables you to play top level rugby forever.