WOUNDED Harlequins have harnessed the emotional fallout of Paul Gustard's sacking and will unleash their frustration on Wasps, says skipper Stephan Lewies.
Lewies, one of Gustard's star signings when he joined from the Lions in 2019, believes his side have responded well under assistant coaches Nick Evans, Adam Jones and Jerry Flannery and are ready to take the game to last season's Premiership finalists.
Lewies said: “I was surprised that Paul left and there's been a lot of emotions over the last week or so, but as players we're in a blessed situation.
“Compared to the rest of the world, the fact we can go out and train with our mates means we've used that as motivation to work hard, concentrate on our jobs and not be distracted by all the things going on behind the scenes.
“Our coaches have reacted brilliantly. We've all pulled together with a lot of buy-in from the players – hopefully, there'll be a bounce.
“Players have taken a lot more responsibility. It's a good thing that we have input because when you get on the pitch and some of those ideas are your own pictures you've painted, you're under a little more pressure to make them work.
“Wasps are a team we enjoy playing. We like scoring tries and playing ball in hand and they do as well, so it's usually a good match-up. We're just buzzing to get out there and move forward.”
Having conceded more tries than any other side bar Bath, Quins are banking on the return of centre Andre Esterhuizen to shore-up a leaky defence.
Lewies identifies poor discipline as another area of concern: “Defence is a massive focus for us and our discipline has let us down hugely – it's probably our biggest work-on.
“We've been giving people easy entries into our 22, allowing quality opposition opportunities to drive at us from five metres seven or eight times a game when you only want to defend those once or twice.
“But, equally, in attack we have really exciting players so if we can keep possession and actually put more pressure on teams, that will mean less defending and sort out some of the problems.”
Lewies added: “Andre Esterhuizen is back after his ban and he's worldclass at getting us over the advantage line. He's a massive centre at over 110kgs so not only does he stop people, he gives our attack a focus and he'll bring a lot of energy to the game.
“Having Joe Marler available is massive, too. He helps me a lot.”
