Furbank: Quins win keeps us in the hunt

George Furbank believes Northampton Saints’ victory over Harlequins on Friday evening was ‘massive’, given the 2023/24 Gallagher Premiership campaign is already more than a third of the way through.

The 27-year-old inspired the men in Black, Green and Gold to a 36-33 win under the lights at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens, claiming the man-of-the-match award for an all-star showing on both sides of the ball.

Saints led the topsy-turvy encounter 21-12 at the break thanks to tries from Ollie Sleightholme, Lewis Ludlam and Alex Mitchell – and despite Quins coming back repeatedly during the second half, the hosts kept their opponents at arm’s length thanks to Alex Coles’ bonus-point sealing score, as well as a second of the evening for Sleightholme.

Northampton lacked some red-zone efficiency in both halves, and a late error ended up allowing Quins to take two bonus points back to London in defeat, but overall Furbank was delighted with the way his side stuck to the task on Friday.

“It always seems to be a high-scoring game whenever we play Quins at the Gardens on a Friday evening,” he said. “But we’ll take the win!

“Our accuracy was a little off. We didn’t want to make it a back-and-forth game, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to avoid that.

“I thought we moved the ball really well during the first half, but were scrappy with it on the floor or were throwing passes and offloads that weren’t really on, so that was frustrating for us to begin with. The errors went down in the second half and we controlled the game a lot better, although we should have closed the game out sooner.

“It was disappointing to give them two bonus points to go away with – but we’re certainly happy with the defensive display as a whole, as the only times we got hurt were from our own attack errors, balls going on the floor and so on.

“It means every game is vital and we’ve got another big one next week away at Saracens which will be a big test for us. We were disappointed with how we performed in the semi-final last year, and that will be in the back of our minds. If we can play like we did in the second half of that semi, we’ll put some good pressure on them.”

Furbank took the plaudits after the match, with his 11-point haul the highest of any player in the game, also making 20 passes (3rd overall), two offloads (1st), eight carries (5th) and three kicks from hand (4th).

It was a mature showing, having stepped into the No.10 jersey during the week in place of the injured Fin Smith, and fly-half is a position the versatile back increasingly feels he can make his own when required.

Furbank said: “Fin’s obviously been going really well, so I knew I had some big shoes to step into. The boys outside me – Dingers [Fraser Dingwall] and Freemo [Tommy Freeman] – made life very easy for me, and I’m pleased with how I performed.

“I will sometimes rotate with Fin to step into the fly-half position during training, but it’s not necessarily something I do a lot of when he’s fit.

“When you know he’s going to be out of action at the weekend, you can really step into it during the week, and I’ve got enough experience there under my belt now to feel comfortable – whether that is filling in for ten minutes at the end of matches when Fin’s cramping up a bit, or playing fly-half from the start.”

Furbank also caught the eye on the other side of the ball, landing 12 tackles and effecting two turnovers – second only to Mitchell on the night.

Several impressive shots on talismanic centre André Esterhuizen helped to stymy Quins’ attacking threat, and Furbank admitted preparation was key in that particular department.

“I knew what was coming! I spent about half an hour warming my shoulders up alone, as I knew he [Esterhuizen] would be running down my channel,” Furbank added.

“Radders [Lee Radford] has brought some really big energy to our defence; he talks about having time in the tackle and making big shots, and no matter what position you are on the field, you have to be able to do that.

“So, I was pretty happy to get a couple of good shots on him and slow down that part of their attack.”