Most bad games of rugby have a redeeming feature tucked away somewhere but not this one. In terms of life-enhancing Saturday afternoon activities the average Quins fan would have had infinitely more fun creosoting the fence or de-fleaing the cat, far less depressing options than sitting through 80 minutes of dross.
Sadly things are going so awry at Quins that certain individuals would probably have ended up creosoting the cat and de-fleaing the fence. This latest defeat was the club's seventh straight of this season, which is looking ominously grim and there will be no Heineken Cup respite when they face Munster in Limerick on Saturday.
The residents of The Stoop, in short, are on their knees and, though another overseas signing will be announced today, the club's coach-cum-chief executive Mark Evans is bright enough to recognise a crisis when he sees one. If Quins are to avoid the hell-hole of relegation, they will need to win a third of their remaining 15 Premiership matches, a seriously tall order on current form.
Though Quins have a number of good players, they are creating few scoring chances, largely because their pack is short on explosive power and their fly-half Jeremy Staunton is struggling vainly to impose himself.
The two facts are doubtless related but Staunton took too many wrong options and was also outpointed in the goal-kicking stakes by Leicester's Andy Goode.
The upshot was a contest which really was a case of the Goode, the bad and the ugly. In fairness to the beefy Leicester outside-half, three of his five penalties were long-range beauties but the Tigers' rigid 10-man game-plan meant that Geordan Murphy, the most creative attacking full-back in Europe, might as well have spent the afternoon painting his toenails.
The unfortunate Ollie Smith also dislocated his right shoulder midway through the first-half, ruling him out of contention for England's autumn Tests, and Lewis Moody, despite setting a new standard for energetic touchline warm-ups, never got on at all. Apart from a professional foul from Neil Back that prompted a yellow card, a couple of flare-ups and one isolated burst into the Quins 22 by Seru Rabeni, that was pretty much the extent of the printable action.
All of which left Evans in understandably prickly mood, snapping at one local reporter who had the temerity to ask why Quins had not signed up more new players in the summer rather than awaiting the arrival of the former All Black Simon Maling on November 1.
"You give me the name of another world-class lineout forward who was available and out of contract this summer and I would be really interested," hissed Evans sarcastically. "It really irritates me when people make such sloppy assumptions. We're not playing fantasy rugby."
He can say that again. His opposite number John Wells, from his lofty position at the opposite end of the table, predicted that Quins would "turn the tide" at some point but the hoary old joke about Evans the boss reading the riot act to Evans the coach is firmly back in circulation.
The ultimate irony, of course, is there has been no stauncher critic of the concept of relegation than Evans, who argues that nudging one club over the financial precipice each season is suicide for a fledgling professional sport. Unless they get a grip soon, the self-styled mighty Quins are heading for a horribly messy fall.
Harlequins: Duffy; Harder, Greenwood, James, Keogh; Staunton, Henjak; Jones, Fuga, FitzGerald (Lambert, 62min; Fitzgerald, 71), Winters (Rudzki, 57), Miall, Easter (Tiatia, 59), Vos (capt), Diprose.
Pens: Staunton 3.
Leicester: Murphy; Vesty, Smith (Cornwall, 21), Rabeni, Holtby; Goode, Bemand (Ellis, 57); Morris (Rowntree, 60), Chuter, White, M Johnson (capt), Kay, Corry, Back, W Johnson.
Pens: Goode 5.
Sin-bin: Back 29.
Referee: D Pearson (Northumberland).
Attendance: 9,954.
