Kemeny: Tough Quins loss will be ‘invaluable experience’ for Saints’ young guns

Stand-in skipper Josh Kemeny believes that despite a gutting late defeat to Harlequins on Friday evening, the experience gained for many of Northampton Saints’ youngsters will be instrumental in the long-term.

The men in Black, Green and Gold led for much of the contest at Twickenham Stoop, where despite a significant number of players being unavailable due to injury or international selection, tries from Tom Pearson, Tarek Haffar and Tom Seabrook put the visitors in a position to triumph heading into the final moments.

Cassius Cleaves, Tom Lawday and Will Joseph had kept Quins in touch, and with just four minutes remaining it was Cleaves again who struck the killer blow and completed the turnaround for the hosts.

Saints took a losing bonus point back to Northampton and remain nine points adrift of the play-off spots with seven matches remaining in the Gallagher Premiership season.

“All the guys who went 80 minutes, and all the guys who came off the bench and showed a lot of energy, gave a huge amount of effort and you can’t knock the intent,” he said. “It was just that top 2% that meant we didn’t quite get there in the end.

“The words ‘execution’ and ‘consistency’ get thrown around quite a lot, but it’s definitely the case that if you do those things in the first half of a game of rugby, it makes the second half easier – so we could have been better there.

“A full-on Premiership match is different to a game in the Premiership Rugby Cup; it’s got more sting, it’s tougher, it’s harder all round.

“So, that experience is invaluable and will bring a lot of development to those young boys, and everyone else, that was out there.”

Kemeny was captaining Saints for the second time in his career, after leading Northampton in Paris for their Investec Champions Cup clash against Stade Francais.

The Australian flanker led from the front with the men in Black, Green and Gold’s backline boasting an average age of just 23.5, and Kemeny is looking forward to the next few weeks of Premiership Rugby Cup action – with Saints’ younger players set to continue to form the bulk of Northampton’s matchday squads.

He said: “It was a privilege to have been able to lead the boys for a second time [on Friday night].

“With some younger and less experienced guys in the team, it was always going to be a challenge, but it was a challenge we were proud to have.

“We’re now going into the PRC for the next few weeks, so there’s no time to dwell on it, it’s time to learn from it and get going again as we want to put our best foot forward in that competition.”