By George Davis
Harlequins’ utility back Cameron Anderson is ready to take his opportunities with both hands as Harlequins prepare to face London Scottish at the Richmond Athletic Ground on Saturday.
Anderson signed for Quins ahead of the 23/24 season from London Scottish, but with game time at a premium with the likes of Leigh Halfpenny and Tyrone Green ahead of him in the pecking order recently, he has found himself back in the dark blue shirt of the exiles once again and hopes to put it to his old team mates.
“The way I probably look at it is more so of an opportunity for Quins, but I would be lying if there wasn’t a part of me that wanted to stick one on them though.
“But from my perspective it is more of an opportunity to show what I can do in Quins colours and I think very quickly once that ball starts moving and the games kicked off, familiarity will disappear, and we will worry about the job at hand.”
The Premiership Cup campaign also allows those on the periphery to get another chance to impress the coaches.
“You are in front of coaches in training, however it is very different in a game scenario.”
Harlequins announced a strategic partnership with London Scottish in 2022, and since then have shared coaching staff and players but despite the changeover between clubs and difference in leagues, Scum Coach Adam Jones is keeping his teams preparation the same.
“We have doubled down on how we have gone so far this season, there has been a lot of early chat that the boys who haven’t played want to be treated like the boys who have played every game.
“We are going into it with our mentality, philosophy of playing so nothing is changing,” added the former Welsh international.
“It’s not just because we are playing a Prem Cup game against a team in the lower divisions we will still attack when it’s right to attack we aren’t going to throw the ball around carelessly or if we need to scrum we will.”
The likes of Gerrard Mullen and Joe Gray are two of those to have made the jump between the clubs.
“Obviously Joe Gray has been there as a head coach and come through the club, a lot of our players play for them on loan as well.”
But recent history poses a few problems for Jones, like how to put in a more complete performance against their neighbours.
“We know they are going to cause us issues cause they have the last two times they have played us, I think last 6 Nations we played them and there were 22 points in the first half and then we didn’t score any in the second half.
‘We played them in pre-season, didn’t score against them in the first half and then we scored 35 so we are looking at putting in more of an 80 minute performance.”
