Rob Baxter summed up the dilemma of preparing a side to face Harlequins. “The trouble with facing teams who are patchy is that you do not know which patch you are going to hit,” Exeter’s head coach said a month ago. The Chiefs duly lost their unbeaten record at the Stoop a week after their hosts had been beaten at Worcester.
Quins followed up the victory over last season’s beaten Premiership finalists by succumbing to Leicester, a side that had gone into the game at Welford Road on an eight-match losing streak. It portrayed the patchiness Baxter referred to: victories over two of the current top three have been supplemented by defeats to two of the bottom three, suggesting a side boasting a number of England internationals past and present is most motivated when taking on the best.
Wasps started the round which marks the halfway point of the regular Premiership season in fourth place, but the only way the word best could be applied to the team that lost the 2016 Premiership final in the dying minutes is that in their last five league matches they have been bested four times, although they will be relieved to be at Twickenham for the Big Game as they have won only one of their last five league matches at the Stoop.
Ben Te’o to make first Worcester start of the season against Saracens
“It is about being more consistent,” says the Harlequins second row, Matt Symons, who joined last summer from Wasps. “We win one week and lose the next. We need to find some away form and build on the good victories such as the one we had against Exeter.
“I cannot put my finger on why we cannot back up a performance. We have had a long discussion about it and it is about performing when the pressure is on and riding the swings in momentum that happen during games.”
Quins have not recorded consecutive league victories this season: they last did so in October last year when they had consecutive home matches. They are more consistent in front of their own supporters with their two league defeats at the Stoop this season, against Bath and Saracens, both by an unconverted try, but they are conceding that advantage by moving over the road for what will be a near sell-out.
“I am loving my time here,” says the 29-year-old Symons, who started his professional career in New Zealand after failing to make it initially in England. “We are not near our potential yet and have a long way to go. When I signed for Harlequins, John Kingston was in charge and he sold me the vision of where the club was going. He has gone, as happens in professional sport, and Paul Gustard has taken over: nothing happens overnight and the Premiership is incredibly competitive. We speak about changing mindsets and if you keep working hard, you will crack the nut.
“I have been happy with my start to the season while being aware that there are improvements I have to make. It will be my first Big Game but I have played at Twickenham before, against Wasps when I was with London Irish. It will be an awesome occasion against my former peers and I will be flying into it.”
Symons has only been a professional player for five years. “I did not play for three years after I turned 18,” he says. “The system went against me and I was too small (he is now 6ft 7in and 18st 6lb). Saracens rejected me and I turned to rowing. I did the Olympic pathway programme but then got injured: I was picked in Great Britain’s under-23 squad but could not race because my arms kept blowing up. I had an operation but it did not work and I went back to rugby. I played for Esher and then decided to go to New Zealand for a few months.”
Within a year of arriving in New Zealand, Symons was played provincial rugby for Canterbury and the following season was in the Chiefs’ Super Rugby squad. “Initially, I worked for the Earthquake Commission in Christchurch,” he says. “I was dealing with the fall-out, such as insurance claims. I was training a couple of days a week and playing on the Saturday before Canterbury called to see if I could be a bag holder at training. From there I went to the Chiefs before returning home to join London Irish. New Zealand was the best thing that happened to me.
“I was in the leadership group at the Chiefs, the only non-All Black among the likes of Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane, Aaron Cruden and Liam Messam. What struck me was how calm they stayed in difficult situations, relaying clear and simple messages. It was a process-oriented approach rather than an emotional one and I learned a lot.
“The beauty of the Kiwi system is that pathways are so quick compared to here where a number of very good players get lost in the Championship or National One. I was eligible to play for New Zealand through the visa system: I had conversations with the union – I am sure they talk to a lot of people – but if the opportunity had come I could not have justified wearing the jersey because I am English. I have enjoyed different experiences and want to build on them with half my career still to come.”