Conor O'Shea said feelings of "pain" and "hurt" following Harlequins' recent poor run inspired their 53-15 win against Gloucester.
Director of rugby says performance was a reaction to recent poor results
Harlequins director of rugby Conor O'Shea said his players' feelings of "pain" and "hurt" following their recent poor run inspired the emphatic 53-15 Aviva Premiership victory against Gloucester.
Quins came into the match having suffered three defeats in their last four Premiership matches and also losing 21-20 at home to Newcastle in the semi-finals of the LV= Cup.
The Falcons went on to lose to Gloucester in the final of the Anglo-Welsh Cup - the Cherry and Whites in contrast putting together a run of 11 games unbeaten.
But a hat-trick from Ugo Monye and a superb kicking display from Rory Clegg helped dismantle the visitors to the delight of O'Shea.
"It came from a combination of a lot of hurt we felt from a couple of weeks ago and the run we have been having," he said.
"Anybody that was down here and watched the Newcastle game in the LV= Cup would have seen some fantastic rugby but we just didn't finish.
"At times we probably played better rugby in that game [than we did today].
"And with Gloucester you are bound to have a comedown of some sorts when you win a bit of silverware and then they were hit by a team that had a lot of pain, a lot of hurt.
"It showed last week when Ireland came out [against England in the Six Nations] with a lot of pain and hurt what you can do and we went about it in the right way. We try and play rugby and we always will.
"Nick [Easter], Danny [Care] and George Robson coming back into the team gave us a bit of experience around all the youth that we have and was a massive thing today.
"We have gone through a period of six or seven weeks where we have not been just missing Nick or Danny, but we've had Tom Guest, Karl Dickson, Nick Evans, George Robson, Ollie Smith, George Lowe all out injured.
"It happens to everyone, a lot of young guys stepped up and I am delighted to have a bit of momentum back in our season. There is still a lot to play for."
Dreadful
Gloucester head coach Bryan Redpath deemed his side's performance as "unacceptable" and said it was their worst performance in two years.
"We were dreadful," he said. "I think Quins had more energy than us, that was pretty obvious.
"I thought they looked a bit more energised than we did but, on the whole, I thought we were dreadful.
"We fell off tackles today that we hadn't fallen off previously and made it pretty easy to score against us on certain occasions.
"In the first half the game was gone at 24-3 because we never controlled any field position or possession. It happened we have got to get on with it and deal with it."
