Maybe Saturday was the day when the English game shrugged its shoulders and got on with playing rugby, regardless of the experimental law variations. Maybe Mike Catt was right when he said, an hour before this enthralling Guinness Premiership game at the Twickenham Stoop: “You don’t have to kick the ball.”

In bright autumnal sunshine, in Bath and Watford, they thought so too, as opposed to the claustrophobic evening encounter of England’s two leading clubs, London Wasps and Leicester, less than 24 hours earlier. London Irish, of whom Catt is the attack coach, were down and nearly out at half-time, only to fly out of the blocks after the interval to score 20 points before Harlequins recovered their first-half poise and character and all but reclaimed the spoils.

But this would have been played the same way last year. The reasons are attitude and a referee who will let the players play: Dean Richards is not the best-known of England’s officials but he helped to produce a stirring game and did not always referee to the letter of the law, as now directed, but certainly to the spirit.

“There was a similar feel to our Heineken Cup semi-final with Toulouse last season, the same sort of ambition should be rewarded,” Toby Booth, the London Irish head coach, said. His predecessor, Brian Smith, who was watching in his new role as England attack coach, thinks so, too, as does Catt, as coach and player. So does Shane Geraghty, the exciting midfield player expected to be involved in Wednesday’s game at home to Sale Sharks after recovering from an ankle ligament injury.

Seilala Mapusua led the revival with the evangelistic support of Chris Hala’ufia and Elvis Seveali’i, his fellow Pacific islanders, and Harlequins found it as difficult to play without the ball as did Irish in the first half.

Harlequins these days are worth watching. They have seldom had as many as 11,000 at their ground so early in the season and the crowd was rewarded by the speed of thought and movement that earned tries for Ugo Monye and Tom Guest, and enabled David Strettle to near the form that could restore him to England’s wing.

The turning point was a scrappy try, chasing a ball hacked on by Delon Armitage in the first half, because it kept Irish in the hunt. When Peter Hewat moved from full back to fly half, he became more influential and offered a delightfully measured pass to Armitage for his second try, as well as intercepting Chris Robshaw’s pass and speeding in from halfway.

From dominating the lineout and the turnover count, Harlequins had to subsist on dregs and the quality of the Irish replacements hurt them even more. Yet they had the stomach to work Danny Care over the line from close range and for more than a minute after time was up, they played this way and that in an effort to win. They left themselves, and their supporters, wanting more.

Scorers: Harlequins: Tries: Monye (8min), Guest (25), Care (78). Conversions: Malone 2, Luveniyali. Penalty goals: Malone 2 (5, 18). London Irish: Tries: D Armitage 2 (40, 62), Hewat (66). Conversions: Hewat 2. Penalty goals: Hewat 3 (2, 60, 71).

Scoring sequence (Harlequins first): 0-3, 3-3, 10-3, 13-3, 20-3, 20-8 (half-time), 20-11, 20-18, 20-25, 20-28, 27-28.

Harlequins: M Brown; D Strettle, G Tiesi, J Turner-Hall, U Monye (rep: T Williams, 75); C Malone (rep: W Luveniyali, 72), D Care; C Jones, G Botha (rep: T Fuga, 67), M Ross (rep: M Lambert, 72), O Kohn (rep: G Robson, 67), J Evans, N Easter (rep: C Robshaw, 50), W Skinner, T Guest.

London Irish: P Hewat; T Ojo, D Armitage, S Mapusua, S Tagicakibau; E Hickey (rep: E Seveali’i, 46), P Richards (rep: P Hodgson, 52); A Corbisiero, D Paice (rep: D Coetzee, 58), F Rautenbach (rep: T Lea’aetoa, 58), N Kennedy, G Johnson (rep: R Casey, 46), R Thorpe, S Armitage (rep: J Fisher, 76), C Hala’ufia.

Referee: D Richards. Attendance: 11,007.