'We drew the equivalent of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Man City'

Cardiff head coach Matt Sherratt accepted that his side had no answers to a quality performance from Harlequins following their 54-15 rout in front of a sell-out crowd at the Arms Park.

The Welsh region matched their more illustrious opponents in the first 25 minutes but once Quins upped their game, Cardiff were left chasing shadows as the Londoners virtually booked their place in the knockout stages of the European Champions Cup with a home game against Ulster next week to come.

Jack Walker, Will Evans, Andre Esterhuizen, Will Beard, Dillon Lewis, Fin Baxter, Tyrone Green and Marcus Smith crossed for the visitors, with the latter converting seven to celebrate his 150th appearance for the club with a personal tally of 19 points.

Thomas Young scored two tries for Cardiff with Tinus de Beer adding a penalty and a conversion, but they have only secured two points from their three games in Europe with a trip to Racing 92.

Sherratt said: “Let’s be fair no one expected us to get very far in the competition when we drew the equivalent of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Man City in our group.

“We had good energy in the first half and scored a couple of decent tries, but we lost a lot of confidence with that try just before half-time.

“It was unusually quiet in the dressing room at half-time as that try knocked the stuffing out of us.

“We were beaten by a better side in most areas and what you can’t do against quality sides is help them to use their firepower and I believe we did that on a few times tonight.

“They are well ahead of us in terms of foundation and there isn’t a quick fix as we have to start virtually at the bottom.

Harlequins head coach Danny Wilson, who was previously employed at Cardiff, ensured that his former side were not going to be underestimated.

“Cardiff have been playing well lately and they should have beaten Bath so we came here knowing how dangerous they can be,” Wilson said.

“They obviously came with an aerial gameplan and they got a fair bit out of us using that tactic in the first half, but we adjusted well.

“We got set-piece dominance and played a strangling game with our driving line-out going well before we were able to execute our customary DNA.

“I lost here when I came back with Glasgow so it’s nice to return with a 50-point win and it was a good night all round.”