George Lowe backs Jamie Roberts to hit heights at Harlequins

Harlequins centre George Lowe is desperate to hook-up with new signing Jamie Roberts, whose impending arrival he describes as a “massive coup for the club.”
Lowe, now fully fit after recovering from a career-threatening neck injury suffered in 2013, stands to gain the most from playing alongside Wales and Lions star Roberts, who will check-in at the Stoop once his country's World Cup campaign is over.
“Jamie's experience will be great for Quins,” Lowe told The Rugby Paper. “He's in his prime and last year, with injuries to guys like Jordan Turner-Hall, we were missing a big ball-carrier in midfield, so for a player like that to be joining is a massive coup for the club.
“He'll be great for us and the young centres we've got like Joe Marchant and Harry Sloan will learn a lot from him. All the boys are looking forward to Jamie coming and, having watched plenty of him over the years, I'd love to be able to dovetail alongside him.
“He runs hard, gets through the gain-line and offloads, which is right up my street, and hopefully I can get opportunities to run off him. He's a world-class player who's done it at the highest level for Wales and the Lions, so you can really feed off someone like that.”
Pre-season training in baking conditions is proving no issue for Lowe, who recently sweated it out in the searing heat and humidity of the sprawling Indian city of Kolkata as part of a Harlequins mission to one of the club's charity partners, the Future Hope School.
Lowe, one of five players to make the seven-day trip, along with former club stars Olly Kohn and Will Skinner, explained: “There's an affiliated club called Future Hope Harlequins, which is part of the school for street kids out in Kolkata, and it was a pretty unbelievable place.
“It's eye-opening to see the levels of poverty there, but also amazing to see what the school does for the kids. They took us to the markets and train stations where the street kids hang out and it's pretty humbling to see where the kids in the school come from.
“They are so motivated to work once they get an opportunity and it was an amazing experience for all the boys who went on the trip. Anything that raises the profile of the charity is a good thing and we'd like to establish an ongoing relationship over there.”
Lowe's priority now is to build on his comeback towards the end of last season and help Quins reassert themselves among the Premiership elite.
Quins finished a disappointing eighth last season and Lowe, 25, said: “It was frustrating dropping out of the top four, but from a personal perspective it was good to be playing again and, hopefully, this season will be better for both myself and the club.
“Injuries and Test call-ups didn't help, but consistency was lacking last season and we'd follow one good performance with a bad one. But Conor O'Shea's got us working hard now – the hardest pre-season I can remember – and we want to make an impact.
“There's a long way to go until the season starts but as a team the ambition is to get the club back up there and try to win some trophies.”
NEALE HARVEY