The 18-year-old centre was handed his first Aviva Premiership start after centre Eamonn Sheridan failed a concussion test on the morning of the game.

Fowlie more than held his own even though Irish were beaten 23-9, a fine tackle on Harlequins centre Matt Hopper one of many shining moments.

And after seeing centres of the calibre of England internationals Jonathan Joseph and Shane Geraghty emerge from the club's academy, Smith believes Fowlie could top the lot.

"I think the one shining light for us was our 18-year-old kid from the academy Tom Fowlie. He made a big play on their centre Matt Hopper and managed himself very well," he said.

"The club has produced some good centres in recent times, but I am not sure any of them are better than Fowlie.

"We are in limbo - we think we can maybe catch the team ahead of us but we certainly cannot do much more than that with only four fixtures left. We are looking to the future now and giving valuable game time to young guys like Fowlie and Gerard Ellis is part of that long term plan.

"We had the opportunity to poke our nose in front but if you are going to win away you cannot miss the three good chances for tries we had.

"We did not anticipate losing both George Skivington and Kieran Low this morning and ended up with seven props in the match-day squad.

"We had to be a little bit innovative and play one of our standby props Jonny Harris as a flanker and a lock in the last couple of scrums."

An early try from Nick Evans and a couple of penalties had Harlequins always in front against the Exiles for whom James O'Connor scored all nine points from the tee.

But it was only in the final quarter that they began to take advantage of their dominance as Sam Smith and Mike Brown both went over for tries.

There then followed a late push for a fourth try and bonus point that would have helped Quins' play-off push but they left it a little too late according to Harlequins director of rugby Conor O'Shea.

"You cannot be arrogant enough to take any victory in the Aviva Premiership for granted so we should be happy with the win but our standards and ambitions are higher than how we played," said O'Shea.

"We know we have to focus on our accuracy. If you get the scores in games then confidence floods through the team, hence the last ten minutes when the shackles came off and we attacked in wave after wave.

"We needed slightly more of the class Danny Care and Mike Brown showed at the end and a bit more calmness as there were so many times when we had good field position but did not execute.

"We will fight to the bitter end to get into the play-offs, but if we do not win away at Sale, the top four will be out of the equation.

"We have won three trophies in the last three years here but we want more and want to always be up their competing."

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