Gareth Southgate helps out Harlequins

Harlequins have enlisted the help of the England football manager, Gareth Southgate, to assist in staging an unlikely comeback in their Heineken Champions Cup tie against Montpellier.

Montpellier have a 14-point lead from the first leg and with the aggregate score from the home and away matches deciding who proceeds to the quarter-finals, the Gallagher Premiership champions must produce a special performance.

"Gareth sat in our meetings and fed back to us a little bit of what he thought. It was great listening to some of his thoughts," assistant coach Adam Jones said.

"We tapped him up about the two legs because football teams would do the two-leg format way more than we would. I don't want to give all the secrets away because Montpellier might be reading this!

"He was good, a lovely fella. Probably not as tall as I thought he was going to be! He was very softly spoken. He knew rugby and understood it.

"The impression we got was that he was here to learn off us as much as we were to learn from him. Probably shows how far we've come as an organisation."