Saracens beat Quins in front of nearly 84,000 at Wembley

Harlequins rested their England contingent for their Wembley showdown with Saracens and paid the price by losing ground in the race for a place in the Aviva Premiership play-offs.

Chris Robshaw, Danny Care and Mike Brown were given the weekend off following their involvement in the Six Nations and Quins desperately missed their three most influential players.

While the trio were absent, Saracens started Owen Farrell and Mako Vunipola, both of whom featured against Italy last Saturday.

Farrell was superb as he masterminded Quins' seventh defeat of the season behind a dominant pack, finishing with a try, three conversions and two penalties in an individual haul of 17 points.

The England fly-half and man of the match, along with Vunipola, was replaced in the final quarter but by that point Saracens were already beyond reach.

Chris Ashton, George Kruis, Jacques Burger and Marcelo Bosch also ran in tries in a resounding victory that restores them to the summit of the Premiership table in the wake of Northampton's defeat at Sale.

Karl Dickson and Sam Smith crossed for Quins, who were spirited but outgunned in all departments and have only five matches left to force their way into play-off contention.

Sale pulled off a shock 19-6 win at home leaders Northampton to keep their hopes of a top-four finish alive.

Saints struggled to find a way through the Sharks defensive line as they were restricted to just two penalties from Will Hooley.

Sharks, on the other hand, showed a lot of attacking enterprise in the first half, with tries from Mark Cueto, Marc Jones and Tom Brady sealing the win.

Full-back Rob Cook scored 20 points for Gloucester but Newcastle showed that sides should never give up as they grabbed two crucial bonus points at Kingsholm in a 40-33 defeat.

Cook scored one of Gloucester's five tries and kicked three penalties and three conversions as the Cherry and Whites cruised to a 30-point lead at one stage.

Flanker Sione Kalamafoni, lock James Hudson, centre Mike Tindall and wing Jonny May got the others but Newcastle, whose only scores in the first half were a Chris Yorke try and a Phil Godman conversion, turned the game on its head after the break.

Tries from replacement hooker George McGuigan, flanker Andy Saull, full-back Alex Tait and wing Noah Cato plus three conversions by replacement Joel Hodgson gave them a try bonus point and a losing bonus point.

Matt Garvey came back to haunt his former side as he touched down at the death to hand Bath a bonus-point 44-23 win over London Irish at the Madejski Stadium.

Kyle Eastmond, former London Irish flyer Anthony Watson, David Wilson and Garvey all crossed the whitewash for the visitors while George Ford chipped in with 24 points from the tee.

London Irish, cheered on by the majority of the 22,000 fans in attendance, fought all the way and Topsy Ojo and Chris Hala'ufia scored tries, with James O'Connor adding 10 points with the boot and Shane Geraghty knocking over a penalty.

But it was not enough for the win as they slipped to their third-straight Aviva Premiership defeat while Bath consolidated third place.

Before the game London Irish provided a guard of honour to flanker Declan Danaher, the club's longest serving player in the professional era having joined in 1999, and who announced his retirement on Thursday.