You know who you are. Perhaps for clicks, for the infamous hot take, perhaps driven by the ubiquitous dislike that is routinely sent Barnet’s way, you pegged Saracens low on the predicted Premiership table. Predicting anything in sport is a mug’s game, but still. 

Some said Sarries wouldn’t finish in the top 4, some even suggested bottom half, some hardy, jealous, foolish soul proffered 9th. In the words of a veteran and oft-quoted sports broadcaster: “Now you will have a plate with some words and a knife and a fork… What I’m trying to say is you’re going to eat your words.”

I reckon a large amount of it was hope. Hoping that after so long at the top of the game, some sort of preordained equity would come into play. Like rugby is flipping a coin and Saracens just kept calling it right. True, luck can run out. But Saracens don’t need luck the way they practise. 

Talking of coin: do previous misdemeanours come into it? They’ve been tried, sentenced and seen time served but many still feel they are guilty and should be treated accordingly. This anger would not exist of course if they’d taken their medicine and then just been average. But to go down, come back up and then win the league again provides an uncomfortable thought: this was an excellent team despite the overspending. It makes the blood boil. 

Maybe some people thought with the likes of Farrell and the Vunipola brothers moving on, that dominance would leave, too. As if Saracens’ power was down to individual prowess. I mean, they were very, very good players, but their absence has exposed an old adage: rugby isn’t mastered by players but teams. Individuals are only really as good as everyone around them. The skin itches. 

Potentially, many would have forgotten just how good a judge of talent Mark McCall, Joe Shaw and the coaching staff are. How good they are at finding players and getting the very best out of them. Seasoning raw talent into excellence; designing a method that brings out the genius that lies within them all. Maybe a meal tastes good because of the skill of the chef, rather than just the ingredients? 

God damn Saracens will always be very good. You cannot just wish it any other way. In fact, they seem to grow stronger by witnessing your discomfort. As though they are able to channel your displeasure and make it a pleasure of their own. 

What you need to do is bring in that feeling of frustration, dislike, unfairness and make it work for your benefit. Bring together all the deep, dark blues and purples of disquiet and fashion them into a force of your own. Put them into each shoulder and harness them for you. 

Harlequins are four years lacking in derby wins. Nobody has been beaten by Saracens more smartingly than they of late: last season’s particular thwackings stung for days. In the pre match hospitality chat, mealy mouths offered “professional outfit” and “we respect them” but time has turned sporting inconveniences into villainy. And to overcome the bad guys and become a hero, you must be able to master your own storm. 

The tempest came with 26 minutes on the clock. The game was a lot older after a large amount of rightful time was taken helping the stricken and luckless Andy Christie from the field, but nevertheless the maelstrom West London had hoped for arrived. A good kick into the corner from Marcus Smith signalled a surprising intent, even the referee had mistakenly pointed at the posts. 

But the Stoop faithful were rewarded with half a dozen runners peppering the visitors’ line before Finn Baxter pushed his way through. The cherub-faced prop forward embodying a theme of the afternoon by reaching further than he should have. The acute edge to the game was audible; the expletives shot into the air with a passion that pricked. 

Is it animosity or contempt? Good old fashioned hatred? Whatever it was the home side were making it work for them. With former Quin Hugh Tizard an early addition off the bench for Saracens, boos were now echoing around the stands. The home side’s antipathy had a face, a name, a shirt number. Galvanising shouts from a Stoop faithful starting to warm their hands on their own candescence begot a number of good hits, good steals, good choices from the home players. Across the field Harlequins stretched themselves and kept Sarries out. There is where the foundation of this brilliant win lay. Quins remembering that rugby is about the stick rather than the move. 

Don’t get me wrong, at times, Quins were lovely in attack: Anyanwu’s try was a thing of beauty, (benefitting from another searing Will Porter run and pass) but this was not a game of hands and feet, but of heart and lungs. Of getting up and going again, of out-working the team known for working hard, of passion and intent. Of turning displeasure into pleasure. 

Quins welcome Bath next weekend and will have to produce a performance as good as this one to create the same result. Saracens are on the road again against Bristol. The team who leapfrogged them in to first on the aforementioned table, but a team who have only played once at home, and lost that game to Gloucester. This league is brutal. That appears to be the only thing you can predict.