Harlequins out of European Cup despite Danny Care He will be assessed by Harlequins today and will not play against Scarlets on Sunday, but his fitness will be of concern to Stuart Lancaster, the England head coach, ahead of his first Six Nations match against France on Feb 1. "He did the other ankle before Christmas," Easter said. He was a bit ginger when he came off, but he was obviously disappointed that he couldn't carry on for the rest of the game. He was playing well and wanted to see it out. Indeed he was playing well. He had begun the first-half try for Matt Hopper with a quickly taken tap penalty and he provided the scoring pass with a reverse flick, with feet off the ground as he hurtled into touch. "It was wonderful," Easter said. It gave us a big lift. He showed magic hands. He was just like Dynamo [the magician] dealing cards. However, Clermont went for the more obvious route, playing territory. "We changed tactics at half-time and decided to play a little bit more in their half," Vern Cotter, the head coach, said. We backed our defence and went downtown. Two tries resulted for wingers Naipolioni Nalaga, after a wicked bounce defeated Mike Brown, and Sitiveni Sivivatu, after a well-worked team movement. Not that defeat left Conor O'Shea, the Harlequin's director of rugby, downhearted. Indeed it would probably have been a draw earlier in the competition, as Quins spurned an easy penalty at the end to kick for the corner when they lose that fateful line out. "I am pretty philosophical," he said. We will become a better side for playing in a game like that. It was a huge task, just when you look at the size of the Clermont side alone, in the back line in particular, and you see our fellas going hammer and tongs to keep themselves alive in this tournament. It is a tournament O'Shea fervently wants to continue. I hope we have a tournament like this to be playing in next year . It's a brilliant competition, and whatever solution can be reached so that we can be hosting teams like Clermont, Scarlets, Racing, Toulouse and all the teams we have had here over the past couple of years. That is what we want.