Only four matches in and we can already see the rollercoaster nature of Surrey 4. In our first three games, we’ve had a fairly heavy loss, a convincing win and a game that could’ve gone either way.

London French came up from Surrey 5 this season so were something on an unknown quantity. Do they have the players to compete at the higher level? Were they a club looking to bounce up the leagues?

Our answer partially came before kick off as Les Français arrived at The Reeves sans front row. Cue uncontested scrums and French having to drop to 14 players.

In theory, that should mean an easy victory for Quins. Eighty minutes of 15 v 14 is a no-brainer, surely.

But knowing you don’t need to scrummage means you can bring a very different team. A lighter, quicker team. A team who should relish a game on The Reeves’ wide pitch on a sunny, dry day.

And so it proved to be. French playing in a way that was very … well, French. Wild offloads, blind overhead passes and a willingness to run the ball from anywhere.

But Quins did still have the man advantage which we could gradually make pay. The wide pitch gave French lots of space to defend and Quins were able to stamp our authority on the match. It wasn’t unusual for every French player to be defending so narrow that they were all inside the posts.

So, what can we take from this game?

On the plus side, it was a game that we always controlled. Five tries scored and our defence through the middle of the park was brilliant. With a man down, French were always going to struggle to beat us around the edges.

After giving away so many penalties for high tackles and off-side in the game against Emanuel, our defensive discipline was much better in this game.

As ever, there are work-ons but this was the perfect game to get over the disappointment of the Emanuel game and sets us up nicely for another unknown quantity in Old Freemans.