Mike Brown goes over for Harlequins' first try
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Matches: Harlequins 52 - 0 London Welsh

Harlequins got back to winning ways with a convincing 52-0 win over London Welsh at the Stoop on Saturday.

Quins, who lost 36-13 by Exeter last time out having also been heavily beaten by Saracens last month, ran in seven tries with Mike Brown, Danny Care, Marland Yarde (two), Matt Hopper and Karl Dickson the men on the scoresheet. There was also a penalty try for the hosts, with Nick Evans converting all seven scores as well as kicking a penalty to push Harlequins past the half-century mark.

For parts of the game, it was not a vintage performance from the home side but Chris Robshaw led from the front with an impressive display, while behind the scrum Brown and Care both sparkled. Promoted London Welsh battled hard but once again they fell away badly in the second half. It was their fifth heavy defeat and it already appears likely that they must win next Saturday's home game against fellow strugglers Newcastle if they are to have any chance of avoiding relegation from the Premiership.

Harlequins made four changes from last week's defeat to Exeter with one of them seeing Evans return at fly-half while Tom Casson made his first appearance of the season. London Welsh had the three changes from their home defeat to Gloucester with former Quins, Seb Stegmann and Peter Browne, both included in the starting line-up. They replaced Rhys Crane and the injured Richard Thorpe. Chris Hala'ufia was on the bench for the Exiles, having been loaned out by the Scarlets.

It took Quins just three minutes to take the lead with an superbly created try. From a line-out and drive, Care and Evans combined skilfully in a pre-planned move, which gave Brown an easy run for the try. Even at that early stage, it was evident it was going to be a long afternoon for the Welsh and it came as no surprise when the home side extended their lead in the 11th minute. Robshaw drove forward to set up a ruck from which Aseli Tikoirotuma burst clear to provide Care with a simple try.

Welsh then suffered two further blows with full-back Seb Jewell limping off to be replaced by Crane before Evans kicked a penalty after Brown was late tackled by Ollie Stedman. That made it 17-0 after 22 minutes but the visitors were much more competitive in the remainder of the half and Quins could not make any more additions to the scoreboard.

During that period Welsh matched their opponents in terms of territory and possession, but were unable to take any advantage. The concession of penalties at almost every scrum and frequent handling errors proved to be their downfall. Their effort deserved points and they would have had some, had they not declined a number of kickable penalties in favour of more attacking options, which came to nothing.

After that, it was pretty much all one-way traffic as Harlequins moved up through the gears in the second half to add five more tries. They notched their third of the afternoon within seconds of the restart when Brown evaded three defenders on a 30-metre run before providing the scoring pass for Yarde.

Evans continued his 100% record with the conversion and also slotted over the extras three minutes later after Hopper went over for try number four. Skipper Joe Marler and Care were both replaced with half an hour to go as Quins temporarily relaxed with the match already won.

The game then became disjointed and was further disrupted by a lengthy delay as Welsh's replacement prop, Eddie Aholelei, was carried off on a stretcher. Quins got the scoreboard moving again with a penalty try after replacement Dickson was high-tacked by Stegmann as the scrum-half raced for the line. Evans converted as Stegmann made his way to the sin-bin.

Dickson was not to be denied his score for long, though, as he latched on to a chip ahead from Brown to add Quins' sixth try before Yarde powered over to complete the rout. Evans again converted both for a match tally of 17 points.

Danny Care scores for Quins © Getty Images

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