{"id":241620,"date":"2025-10-26T08:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T08:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/241620\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T08:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T08:28:09","slug":"last-week-everybody-had-a-crack-at-him-now-everyones-back-on-his-bandwagon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/241620\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Last week everybody had a crack at him. Now everyone\u2019s back on his bandwagon’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jason Gilmore saluted Marcus Smith<\/a> for another special Harlequins<\/a> display but then made it clear his side\u2019s Gallagher Prem fortunes do not solely revolve around the England<\/a> star\u2019s broad shoulders or performances.<\/p>\n

The stunning rainbow which appeared over Twickenham Stoop heralded a colourful, shining display from Smith, who looks set to switch back to the number 15 jersey for England\u2019s Autumn opener with Australia<\/a> next Saturday.<\/p>\n

And he duly signed off his club duties in style as man of the match in an eight-try, 52-14 thrashing of bottom club Newcastle.<\/p>\n

Full-back Tyrone Green<\/a> celebrated his 100th club game with a brace of tries but head coach Gilmore, who took over the reins from Danny Wilson at start of the season, insisted: \u201cYou can\u2019t lump it all on Smithy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has to play on the back door at times too. When he knocks it out the park like he did against Sarries (Saracens) everybody lauds him.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

22m Entries <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week against Exeter everybody had a crack at him. Now everyone\u2019s back on his bandwagon this week. When the team functions well that\u2019s when he\u2019s at his best.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Harlequins isn\u2019t just Marcus Smith. Like today the forwards won the collisions and players will look good when their team is moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good result but I\u2019m not getting carried away. We have to make sure we back it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

On full-back Green marking his century of games in fine style, Gilmore added: \u201cTyrone is a quiet achiever and doesn\u2019t say a lot. He\u2019s incredibly humble and a pint of difference for us. He\u2019s growing his game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s huge investment into Newcastle<\/a> has yet to yield a league win \u2013 and on this performance it may be some time coming.<\/p>\n

Newcastle\u2019s defence has now leaked 33 tries and 222 points in their opening five games, with late tries from Ollie Leatherbarrow<\/a> and Murray McCallum<\/a> failing to paper over the gaping cracks.<\/p>\n

Head coach Alan Dickens tried his best to be upbeat but also admitted things need to quickly change in terms of performances and results to keep the new owners happy.<\/p>\n

Dickens conceded: \u201cIt is a very disappointing result. We started so poorly. There were some hard words at half-time to say it wasn\u2019t good enough and we needed to put it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kept handing the ball back to them and Quins are always dangerous with ball in hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one step forward and two steps back at present and we need to change that. It was a difficult game and there are a lot of disappointed players down there in the dressing room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quins hooker George Turner<\/a> felt his side fully deserved their impressive bonus point win and claimed: \u201cWe badly needed to respond after the Exeter loss and this was just the way to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to now build on this and put together a strong run in the league. Unfortunately we have a gap now for the internationals but we will be ready for when the Premiership starts up again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Gilmore saluted Marcus Smith for another special Harlequins display but then made it clear his side\u2019s Gallagher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-241620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}