By Old Kwin
October 29 2002

All eyes at struggling glamour club Harlequins will be turned skyward today when new signing Clark Kent flies in to join the squad.

US international Kent, with 79 caps to his name, is rated by Planet-Rugby the best front-to-back-row forward ever to emerge from his country. In 185 appearances for Georgia Lions his stats are impressive: Tries scored: 283; Tackles Made 2,492; Tackles Missed: 3.   He has never sin-binned.  His arrival is certain to transform the club, and a sequence of convincing victories looks pretty easy now for the habitual under-performers.

Speaking exclusively to us from his home in Atlantis, Clark revealed why he had given up international rugby, and sunny weather for Virgin Premiership grind in damp, West London. 'Well basically its the mud', he told us, 'International rugby is challenging and exciting, and I've immensely enjoyed being at the pinnacle of the game but - let's face it - it's also very muddy and it's difficult to keep clean month in month out. No disrespect to club rugby, but at the end of the day, you really don't get so muddy, and just I fancied a cleaner ride for for a while'.

Over on the  subversive, underground banned fan-site www.comeallwithin.co.uk  talk this week has been upbeat, with the player already attaining almost super-hero status - even in the eyes of the Diamond Piranhas,  Quins' notoriously hard-to-please fans.

Quins management today, however,  attempted to damp down the enormously high expectations resting on Kent, 27.  Speaking exclusively to us earlier in the week,  Quins team manager Mick Taff, ridiculed suggestions that any individual player, no matter how talented, could turn around the club single-handedly 'It's simply not possible in a team sport', he told us, 'and the fans' expectations are unrealistic. The talk of us suddenly winning the Super 20 this year is simply absurd.  But the Premiership is a fair target: with Kent on board it shouldn't really be too hard to string together the fourteen or fifteen wins we'll need to qualify for the play-offs, and once you're at Twickenham, well, a player of Clark's quality will normally be enough to see you through'

Kent flies in today, on the heels of a very muddy game last weekend when he led the US Eagles to a surprise 6-59 defeat at the hands of England in the final of the prestigious, triangular Churchill Cup.  The tournament, now in its 20th year, was won by England for the 20th time. 

Initial concerns over an injury sustained by Kent in that game have eased, when the blow -  first thought to be to his elbow -  turned out in fact to be to his gluteous maximus (easily confused)

Harlequins long suffering supporters were said this week to be deeply divided, as [more overleaf]