Tommy Allan Exclusive: ‘We haven’t really played our best rugby yet’
©JMP for Harlequins
As his long goodbye to Harlequins continues, Italy international Tommy Allan is hopeful that his final months in West London will end on a high note as the club remains competitive in both the Gallagher Premiership and Heineken Champions Cup.
It was announced on the day of Harlequins game with the Cell C Sharks in Durban that Allan would be joining Perpignan at the end of the season.
Spending three years with the Catalan club at the outset of his career nearly a decade ago, until returning to France the 29-year-old’s focus remains very much on Harlequins.
He has just taken part in the club’s media briefing, picking at his paper coffee cup as he has dissected Harlequins’ recent form. Tabai Matson’s team have been nowhere near their best for the past month now, their Champions Cup campaign starting in South Africa with a loss to the 14-man Sharks before labouring to a win over Racing 92 a week later.
Having to contend with a 40 degree Celsius swing in temperature between those two fixtures and frozen pitches at Surrey Sports Park, the most important thing was a result against the Top 14 side. It was by no means easy going, but a win keeps the Londoners alive in the competition.
Harlequins’ last two games in the English top-flight were far from perfect either. Both were wins over Gloucester and Bath, although their opposition were in the fight until the very final moment.
Ending 2022 with the visit of Bristol Bears to the Twickenham Stoop for a double-header, there is hope from Allan that the visit of the West Country side could lead to the performance he and his teammates are looking for.
“We did bounce back against Racing, which was good,” Allan said. “We didn’t play our best game, it was horrible conditions, could of scored more tries, there was a few chances we left behind, so we were pretty frustrated by the game.
“It was a bit bittersweet because we won – so happy days – but we could of done a lot better. We are in a good place in Europe now and we know when we come up against Racing and the Sharks again, we know if we play our best we can beat them.
“You are just trying to find those small things that can make the whole thing click. Sometimes that is tough to find. It’s a team sport, so you have got to have every single player going on full cylinders for the actual team to go the way you want to go.
“It is frustrating, but I think at the same time it is motivating. Because we are winning these games, we are not playing well, but actually what could happen if you do start playing well?
“We are trying to find the right answer, we will find it very soon, hopefully it will be on Tuesday. We have got a pretty good game plan for this game, and if it does go well and everything fired, then I think we will have a good time.”
In his second season with the two-time Premiership champions, Allan has certainly taken to life in the quarters well. In his first game for the club at the start of last season, the Italian picked up the player of the march award and even took a break from representing his country in order to bed in with his new teammates.
Alternating with England international Marcus Smith, Allan is back in the starting side again following Smith’s injury during the Autumn Nations Series. He smiles when asked about what has changed in this past 18 months, saying that he’s become a father amongst other things, but on the field has tested himself.
“I think I wanted to get out of my comfort zone a little bit,” Allan said. “I wanted to experience something different, I had never played in the Prem, I had lived in England and London is beautiful.
“Seeing how Quins played when I came here, I was excited about that; going to a team that was attack-minded and wants to score from anywhere. It is something that I felt could of improved my rugby a lot and I think it has.
“I think I have gone leaps and bounds from when I first joined and I am really happy about it. There’s a big emphasis at this club of honesty and having those tough conversations when you need to. Which is not rugby specific, but life specific.
“If there is a tough conversation to have, I have got to have it and it is going to benefit in the long run, which is something that I have found really eye opening and I will try and keep that for the future.”
Have you taken that honesty back to the Italy squad?
“I have tried to bring as much as I can to Italy from what I have learnt here,” Allan said. “I feel like I have grown as a player, as a person and I have tried to bring that into the national team and I think it has, even if it is only a couple of things, I am sure it is going to make the whole team a lot better.
“For sure, the experience that I have had here, I have implemented them with Italy as well and I think it has benefitted the whole environment.”
Having taken that time away from Italy and then returning to the squad during the summer, Allan brought everything he has learnt back to Kieran Crowley’s side and has seen himself moved around the back line.
“I stuck to my decision that I made before coming here, that I was going to take off international, and I think it has benefitted me a lot, getting that different view of life and a different view of things,” Allan said.
“I did come back to the international stage really hungry. When I got back in the summer, I just wanted to do as well as I could, and I honestly think that time off did benefit me a lot.
“I think playing here has helped me so that I can adapt to different situations. I felt good at full-back when I played there against Samoa and then I moved back to 10 and I felt good there. I am happy, honestly, to play. Especially with Italy, I just want to play.”
That different view on things forged from being out of comfortable surroundings has certainly had an effect.
Removing himself from Test rugby on top of that has certainly made Allan hungrier than ever, the 29-year-old starting in each of Italy’s Autumn Nations Series games and sweeping aside his own pride for the good of the team.
“There is that small side of you, that ego that says ‘I want to be the number 10. That or nothing’,” Allan said. “But if you look at the bigger picture, you need to do what’s best for the team, and if what’s best for the team is me being at 10, 15 or 12, then I will do that.
“As long as I play, then I am happy. Having a double playmaker is good as well, especially Italy and the way we want to play.
“I think that [change of perspective] was quite recent. Probably that time off that I took. It just helped me realise that. Maturity, I guess. I don’t know what else you’d call it. I just want to play. That’s all I want to do; have fun on the pitch.”
With the World Cup less than a year away, there is plenty of expectation for this Italy side. Beating Wales earlier in the year and then picking up a win against Australia in November, Allan and his teammates are in a pool with France, New Zealand, Uruguay and Namibia, his return to the country as a domestic player following soon after.
Born in Italy to an Italian mother and Scottish father, Allan would represent Scotland U20 and play for Western Province in South Africa before signing for Perpignan in 2013. Now on his way back to the country, the former Benetton playmaker returns to France where interest in the game is at an all-time high.
“I feel like it’s more competitive,” Allan said. “The whole league is more competitive. I feel like the resurgence of the French national team has helped massively. The whole country is behind them, everybody is crazy about them, so that’s helped grow the sport.
©JMP for Harlequins
“You get those big TV deals and everything, and that is all due to the French national team doing so well. That’s then funnelled back into all the clubs. There is a lot of buzz around it, and it is going to last until the World Cup.
“Then depending on what France do, it could kick on from there. If they do well, it can literally explode.”
Tuesday’s double-header with Bristol at the Stoop will be a major test. Initially due to have been played at Twickenham Stadium as part of Big Game 14, train strikes have meant postponing that fixture until March next year when Exeter Chiefs come to town.
Having experienced this month of indifferent performances, while still finishing on the winning side more often than not, there is a belief that Harlequins will kick on in the weeks to come.
Third in the Premiership and sixth in Pool A of the Champions Cup, with half a season left there is much to play for. In the eyes of the team’s fly-half, there is plenty still to come from he and his teammates starting against bottom-placed Bears.
“With all these expectations, there is pressure as well, but that is kind of why we play the game,” Allan said. “It is really exciting. We are in this position, and we haven’t really played our best rugby yet. Which is exciting. Frustrating and exciting at the same time.
“We are in contention for both competitions, and it is something that we set up as a goal at the start of the season and we are in a good place now, and hopefully if we beat Bristol on Tuesday we will be in a great spot.
“That is half of the season, and we can look back and say ‘we are in the right place now, and if we fix a few things we can actually get to what we set out at the start of the season’.”
