Adam Radwan runs riot as Leicester leave Quins’ playoff hopes in tatters

Could not have gone any worse for Harlequins; could not have gone much better for Leicester. Bath may now be the first team to be mathematically guaranteed a place in the playoffs, following their home win over Newcastle, but Leicester take another big stride towards joining them. Maximum points in front of nigh-on 26,000 of their faithful sends them above Sale into second, with three rounds remaining.

Quins are not mathematically out of it, eight points adrift of fourth, but realistically this is it for their season. That hideous experience in Dublin a few weeks ago seems to have knocked them sideways. Worse, Marcus Smith spent most of the match hobbling, before he was forced off in the final quarter, a forlorn figure, anxious thoughts of the Lions surely not far from his mind.

He had it relatively soft compared to the fate of Cameron Anderson, keen to make an impression on Quins’ right wing, who overdid the enthusiasm in pursuit of a couple of kicks. He saw yellow in the first half for colliding with Freddie Steward as he leapt to take an up-and-under. And if only he had seen the second yellow – and therefore red – he was shown for doing the same thing at the start of the second half, but he was out cold, his head thudding into Steward’s hip. After nearly a quarter of an hour of treatment, he was carried from the field in a stretcher.

Contrast the experience of his opposite number, Adam Radwan. Since his move from Newcastle mid-season, Leicester’s right-wing has wooed Welford Road with a blizzard of tries, his hat-trick here bringing up a tally of six Premiership tries in five appearances. He might have had four, but for the finger tips of Joe Woodward, which had minutely brushed the ball forward, as noticed by the TMO after the conversion of Radwan’s try had been taken.

That would have been his hat-trick, in the 51st minute, but he had it anyway seven minutes later, Steward sending him between two defenders, whereupon he burnt round Tyrone Green as if he were a plodding prop. It had been a torrid day for Green too. When he was shown yellow for a deliberate knock-on, which might have prevented yet another try for Radwan, a minute after Anderson’s red, Quins had to play 10 minutes down to 13. Radwan capitalised with his second in that period, after Jack van Poortvliet went blind from a scrum against Quins’ under-manned defence.

Adam Radwan of Leicester Tigers scores his second try. Photograph: Ashley Allen/Getty Images

Van Poortvliet impressed again. He had played the same trick in the first half, during Anderson’s first spell in the bin, his break blind from a scrum setting up Ollie Hassell-Collins on the other wing, who finished the day with a brace himself.

His second, just before Radwan’s hat-trick score, secured Leicester’s bonus point. Van Poortvliet was instrumental again, tapping a penalty and sending a mis-pass to Woodward, who did the same to Hassell-Collins. Hanro Liebenberg scored the Tigers’ sixth in the last 10 minutes, by which time Quins were well and truly gone.

The only try the visitors managed, cheered on by an enclave of Twickenham ultras tucked away in a distant corner of the Crumbie Stand, was the result of the most generous pass Handrè Pollard can ever have hurled at an opponent, the first-half clock deep in the red. Luke Northmore was only too happy to run it in from his own half, but this was a far cry from the best of London’s dazzlers.

They have all but left the contest now. The Tigers suddenly find themselves very much in the hunt, just when it matters.