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It’s 2025 and the world has well and truly bought into the high performance mindset. We are constantly being bombarded with the diaries of CEOs and five-to-nines before your nine-to-five.
Match of the day presenters and public speakers who have been endorsed by former Tesco execs claim to turn on the ground, gritty, lived experiences of the world's “best of the best” into your life lessons.
Famous person buys bumper sticker. Recites bumper sticker on a podcast and the combination of expensive-looking headphones and WeWork-esque lighting is supposed to convince us that this is the word of the lord. A former Canadian professor, now full-time meme, sold thousands of self-help books where the first step was Make Your Bed…
Harlequins left Dublin off the back of a 62-0 hiding and Alex Dombrandt was rolled out to champion the message, “We’ve now got to review, reset and give everything we have got to our final block of Premiership fixtures”.
I disagree. For the sake of their season, Harlequins actually need to lie to themselves. They need to cash out of today’s high-performance mindset and buy big into the age-old adage that the greatest lies we tell are the ones we tell ourselves. Harlequins from top to bottom need to lie. Only a liar could get out of bed and keep going after a performance like that. Imposter Syndrome, that's another theory our CEOs love to talk about. Am I in the right place? Should I be here? Am I really qualified? I don’t think Harlequins can afford to ask themselves that question right now.
I can’t remember a time I saw a team so lacking, across the board. Even Eddie Jones’ Wallabies side showed they were willing to go down with a sinking ship. This Harlequins team looked more akin to a captain who was joining a Zoom call, camera off, on the bridge of a ship that was sinking. I’m beginning to sound a little too like Roy Keane, but this team didn’t show up, they never got off the plane and they couldn’t have picked a worse time. I don’t know what this team is capable of if all their parts come together. Last season they lost to Toulouse in a semi-final by eight points. Is that the bar? I don’t think so, but it has to be more than what was on display in Croke Park.
In order for Danny Wilson’s side to finish out the season in any kind of way they need to follow Leinster’s lead and write the game off. Leinster aren’t buying into the false sense of security off a 62-0 win and Harlequins shouldn’t embark on a journey of self-reflection off the back of a 62-0 defeat either.
Lie to yourself and keep going.