By Will Castle

Alex Dombrandt insisted Harlequins will brush themselves down and go again after suffering late heartache at the hands of Bath on Saturday.

Quins came into the contest off the back of a famous derby win over Saracens and spent much of the contest against Bath in the lead, boasting a 24-14 advantage with less than 20 minutes left on the clock.

But after Thomas Du Toit crashed over to make it a three-point game, Bath dealt a killer blow with just two minutes to play as Francois Van Wyk rumbled over in the corner to claim the spoils at The Stoop.

With a tough trip to Exeter Chiefs in store next weekend, skipper Dombrandt has called on his teammates to put disappointment behind them.

“It’s pretty gutting to be honest with you, probably one that got away from us,” he said.  “I think we were good in large parts of that game, put a lot of what we wanted to out on the pitch and then just a few areas probably let us down. 

“A bit of discipline as well in that latter end of the second half, but look, we'll brush ourselves down and we'll go again next week.

“As [Joe] Launchbury spoke about, you never take the highs too high and the lows too low, so we'll keep a level head. 

“We’ll look at the areas we need to get better at, we’ll re-gather on Tuesday and we'll attack in the new week.”

After back-to-back home games, Quins will be back on the road as they travel to Sandy Park - a ground they have failed to win at since June 2021.

Their most recent visit was particularly painful, condemned to an emphatic 58-26 thrashing back in May.

But having been buoyed by the vociferous Stoop atmosphere in recent weeks, Dombrandt has urged supporters to follow the team to Devon this Sunday as they look to get back to winning ways.

“There's no place like it,” Dombrandt added, reflecting on the Stoop’s atmosphere against Bath. “Sold out Stoop, nice evening game under the lights, it was great. 

“The atmosphere was bouncing and thank you to all the supporters that came out to watch us. Come and travel down to Exeter and the boys will put on a good show. 

“Last year they put a lot of points on us so we know we're going to have to be at the top of our game to go down and get a good result.”