Battle for top four reaching climax

The battle for the Premiership play-off places heated up yesterday with leaders Northampton losing to Harlequins and a revitalised Bristol Bears launching a stunning comeback to end Leicester’s hopes of making the top four.

In front of 60,000 at Twickenham, Harlequins overcame Saints 41-32. Luke Northmore and Will Porter both scored twice as Quins lost three players – Danny Care, Louis Lynagh and Tyrone Green – to the sin-bin.

Both Northampton and Quins now face daunting challenges in Champions Cup semi-finals next weekend, Northampton against Leinster on Saturday and Quins against Toulouse on Sunday.

Quins skipper Alex Dombrandt said: “We now have the biggest week in the club’s history, it doesn’t get much better. We will give it a good crack and see what happens”

Bristol moved into the play-off positions, level on points with Quins but ahead of the Londoners on matches won, after pulling off an astonishing comeback from 19-0 against the Tigers to win 19-21.

Bristol’s DoR Pat Lam praised the defence and his forwards. “I knew we could score three or four tries in 10-15 minutes. There was a lot of heart, lot of mental toughness and stuff which we have built over the season.”

For exclusive stories and all the detailed rugby news you need, subscribe to The Rugby Paper website, digital edition, or newspaper from as little as 14p a day.