Leeds 3-38 Harlequins, Aviva Premiership, April 24
O'Shea turns attention to Munster
ESPNscrum Staff
April 24, 2011
Harlequins centre Jordan Turner-Hall fends off Leeds' Kearnan Myall, Leeds v Harlequins, Aviva Premiership, Headingley Carnegie, Leeds, England, April 24, 2011
Jordan Turner-Hall was on the scoresheet for Quins © Getty Images
Enlarge
Related Links
Tournaments/Tours: Aviva Premiership

Harlequins director of rugby Conor O'Shea believes that his side's 38-3 win at Leeds was the perfect warm-up for next Saturday's Amlin Challenge Cup semi against Irish giants Munster.

Quins turned in a five-try performance that kept the heat on Bath and London Irish in the race for a top-six Premiership finish and Heineken Cup qualification.

The shattering loss leaves Leeds at the foot of the table and needing to take something from their final trip to Northampton. The Yorkshire side also need Newcastle to fail to secure points fron their two remaining games with Bath to avoid relegation.

"Next week will be a fabulous, fabulous experience, and we'll be ready for it," O'Shea said. "We'll focus on Saracens and the Premiership next Saturday, but until then it's about bringing our game to Munster."

As for the win at Headingley, inspired by Leeds-born Danny Care, who set off the try-scoring and was followed across the whitewash by Joe Gray, Jordan Turner-Hall, Nick Easter and Mike Brown, he said: "It was very hot, we lost a bit of shape towards the end but we were still trying to play. Only one team have got a bonus point up here this season, but we know on our day we can challenge people because of the way we play.

"We've given ourselves a chance of the top six, it's not in our control but it's a chance. If we continue to play like this then we can continue playing for the ultimate challenge."

Leeds head coach Neil Back conceded that survival is now out of his team's hands. He said: "For the first time this season it is out of our hands, Newcastle have two games. The fortunate thing is there opposition is Bath who have something to fight for. Bath need to take 10 points to give themselves an opportunity to get into the top four."

With high-flying Northampton up last for Leeds, the situation looks bleak, and Back admitted: "That is the perception. We're faced with a task that we hoped we wouldn't be faced with but in sport funny things can happen. Northampton away is as tough as it can get, we know with the quality Northampton have got, if they turn up it will be tough.

"I won't look at it [Newcastle's game with Bath], I won't watch the game next week, we've got to switch off from rugby, mentally recoup and come in for the 80 minutes of our lives and give it everything. That may get us the result we need."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Live Sports

Communication error please reload the page.