Leicester centre Manu Tuilagi's tip-tackle could have changed the nature of Premiership final at Twickenham The way they framed the game meant it became one more suited to their derring-do rather than the efficient patterns of the Midland's side. The 2005 Zurich Premiership saw Harlequin FC relegated, not just because they finished bottom, but also they could not find some arbitrary criterion to deny promotion to Bristol who won the then second division. Quins came back but in 2009 suffered Bloodgate, which threatened the club's very survival. But for Conor O'Shea's men, this success was the final line under that, a point from which they can look towards more domestic success and more importantly towards Europe without embarrassment. As winners of a season-long tournament, rather than less attritional cup competitions, they announced themselves as serious players; not content to gad about for much of the year and occasionally turn it on for the cameras. The league doesn't lie is vernacular wisdom, though the credibility of this sagacity is stretched by the play-off system. This year however, with Leicester missing so many players on World Cup duty, it did even the playing field and in the light of that Quins" success is no less worthy than that of a normal season. It is a point not lost on many people in and around Quins that the current coaching team and squad is largely unaltered from the one put together by Dean Richards. They will say privately that they believe the triumph is a positive legacy to be weighed against the negative that was Bloodgate. Though they do not absolve Richards of the responsibility for Bloodgate, they would like it known that the good he did is not unacknowledged. The fact that Tom Williams scored Quins" first try and set the club on the path to glory must have felt like the definitive full stop in the coverage about his part in that scandal. Though he was not as innocent as portrayed by some, it is right to pay tribute to the work he has done in the subsequent years, sufficient to demand selection on merit in a back three that includes Mike Brown and Ugo Monye. Even those in the crowd that did not know much about rugby would have recognised the Quins" No 9 because Care has featured on the non-sports pages recently and with unhealthy frequency. Only those who have played internationally can truly know how severe a punishment was his banishment from this season's Six Nations Championship. It was not, as some have claimed, a mild rebuke, it was a public humiliation which, whilst self-inflicted, was not insignificant. With hindsight, it is easy to now say that this was just the sort of challenge Care needed to spur him on to greater effort. Many players would have sulked or become despondent but his form during the latter stages of the season and in the final shows what he is capable of when his focus is right. He fully deserves to go to South Africa with England. Last Saturday was a day for redemption and joy; there were no saints and plenty of sinners but the cathedral of rugby was a good place to worship.