Young Guns: Harlequins centre Lennox Anyanwu

Any one of Harlequins' crop of emerging youngsters was bound to benefit from Jordan Turner-Hall's return to the Stoop last summer, but perhaps none more so than Lennox Anyanwu.

A beneficiary of the Joe Launchbury Scholarship at Christ's Hospital, Anyanwu dons the No.12 shirt famed for much of the last decade by the frame of Turner-Hall in the club's first team.

Now a second-year senior within the Quins academy, the former England U16, U17 and U18 centre is set on crafting his own path to becoming a midfield regular with a little help from the Premiership champion.

“Jordy came in last September, towards the end of the first year, and he has been great,” explained Anyanwu, who started for Quins in a friendly against Bath United on Friday. “We do skills with him and a lot of defence stuff. On a personal level, he played 12 and he was in the mould of a 12 that I want to be. He'll walk through training with me and give me his analysis.

“He says to me that no matter what I work on the easiest thing to do to make me stand out as a point of difference is defence. When he first came in to now, he is still big on defence and we will go through reads in the 12 channel to what I should look to do at the breakdown.”

Though matches have been few and far between for all players involved in academies, Anyanwu marked his senior debut in December when he came off the bench to feature in the win over Bristol Bears at the Stoop.

It was a high among the lows of 2020, which had seen his time at London Scottish cut short by the curtailing of the Championship season. The dual-registration agreement was still binding for Anyanwu to play in the current campaign before the Exiles withdrew.

“Jordan said to me that the game is full of highs and lows and it changes weekly. We were all in a trough through lockdown and not being able to play but then I was able to make my Premiership debut against Bristol in December. Two weeks before that there had been no opportunities to play at all, but then suddenly I was walking into training on Monday and Guzzy said to me ‘make sure you bring your ‘A' game, you'll be involved this week-end against Bristol'.

“It is always evolving and I suppose that is the biggest thing that I have taken away from the past year. Things can be hit and miss. You can't afford to get too invested in the highs or the lows.

“Our plan is for me to go out on a full-year loan to a club in the Championship. It hasn't been decided which club yet.

“But that will provide the chance for me to plug away in training and fight for a spot and give me all I need to catch up on the year that I have missed.”