Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Boss Jason Gilmore's Harlequins side have made a poor start to the season
ByDavid McIntyreBBC Sport- Published40 minutes ago
Harlequins head coach Jason Gilmore says he expected a difficult start to the season following a summer of changes.
Quins are bottom of the Prem table after losing their first two matches.
They produced a woeful performance in Saturday's 48-0 thrashing by Gloucester - the club's heaviest league defeat for 26 years.
"We're certainly not going to be at our best early doors, but it won't be too far away," Gilmore told BBC Radio London.
"There will be bumps here and there, but the weekend wasn't one we can accept. We've just got to stick to task."
Having been in interim charge for six months after Danny Wilson left Harlequins to join Wales' coaching team, Gilmore was confirmed as permanent boss in March.
That was despite a miserable season in which Quins ended the campaign ninth in the table - their lowest finish for eight years.
Robbie Deans was brought in as performance director and there were further changes, with Rob Hunter, formerly of Exeter Chiefs, coming in as forwards coach and Brad Cooper arriving as attack coach.
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Gilmore declared last month he had "no doubt" his side would perform better this time around, after a "new start" for the club.
But their performances so far suggest there is plenty of work to do.
He described the debacle against Gloucester as "unacceptable", but says a bumpy start was always likely.
"We've been learning a brand new attack system and we've got a brand new line-out system that we're putting in place that's going to take four to six weeks just to bed down," he added.
"We've got the international players that have just come back into the building as well that are learning it on the run.
"They've done their prep work, but there are two massive pieces of your game that we're still building and still learning."
Former Harlequins and England winger Ugo Monye called the abject display against Gloucester "one of the worst performances" he has ever seen.
"They got smashed in the scrum and line-out, their backfield coverage was poor, they got smashed at the gain line," Monye said on the Rugby Union Weekly podcast.
"They didn't score a single point in a league where they're literally handing out points for free."
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Figure caption,Listen to the latest episode of the Rugby Union Weekly podcast
And Gilmore has made his feelings clear to his squad.
He explained: "It's not 'going at' the players, it's more just being honest about things that we wanted to do that we didn't do.
"What we don't want to do is jump at shadows. We've had a pretty reasonable four weeks leading into that, so we've just got to get back on the tools and work as hard as we can and put out a good performance this weekend."
This Sunday, Harlequins are away to Sale, who claimed their first win of the season by beating Saracens last weekend despite having Jacques Vermeulen sent off.
"That's the beauty of sport - now you get your chance to redeem yourself," said Gilmore.
"If we could have played the game a bit sooner after the Gloucester game to get back out there, you'd definitely choose that.
"We're working hard this week in our prep, as the boys always do, and we're keen to go up there and show the best versions of ourselves."
