Yarde ready for 'strange' Irish clash

Editor

Harlequins and England wing Marland Yarde admits taking on his old London Irish team-mates in the Double Header will be strange.

Harlequins and England wing Marland Yarde admits taking on his old London Irish team-mates in the Double Header will be strange.

Yarde has moved across London after coming through Irish's academy, the latest product of the Exiles youth set-up to depart but the only one to leave at the end of last season as the club stabilised following some lean financial years.

Now part of a Harlequins squad looking to challenge in the Premiership and in Europe, Yarde revealed that winning trophies was on his agenda.

Yarde started in all three Tests for England against New Zealand in June, scoring two tries.

“It'll be slightly strange to be playing on the other side of the rivalry at the Double Header. But once I joined Quins I started buying into everything they've got here and performing well as a team,” said Yarde.

“With the quality of players we've got here I know we can be a really hard team to beat. If we stick with our philosophy of wanting to be better than we were before then at the end of the season we are going to be a hard team to beat.

“And that's where we want to be – winning trophies. It's been awesome so far. It's been a tough couple of weeks but that's how you want it in pre-season.

“And as soon as the season starts everyone will be thanking themselves that they put the hard work in now. The guys have been really welcoming as well so it's a good place to be.

“Everything Conor does with us is to give us the extra one per cent, to make us a better team both individually and collectively.”