Nick Evans has issued a rallying call to his Harlequins side as they prepare to embark on what the outside half describes as ‘the biggest four weeks of our season’.

Quins face Gloucester, Northampton, London Irish and Worcester in successive weeks as they attempt to haul themselves up from seventh in the Guinness Premiership table.

And Evans is targeting an impressive points haul.

He said: “We have a massive four weeks coming up and everybody in the squad is well aware of the significance of these games.

“If you look at the fixtures and the table it becomes very clear that these are the biggest weeks of our season because our year could still go either way.

“A few wins and not only are we distancing ourselves from the wrong end of the table, but we could start to close in on the top four places.

“It is something we have to keep in mind and make sure we treat each one of these games as important as the other.”

The weekend clash with Gloucester will see the sides square off for the second time in seven days, with the Cherry and Whites emerging 31-29 winners in Sunday’s LV Cup game at the Stoop.

Evans helped himself to 24 of those points with two tries, a conversion and four penalties, but it was not enough to stop Quins sliding out of the competition.

He added: “Obviously I was happy with my own performance but that tends to fade away if the team has lost.

“It was a very frustrating game as it was one that we definitely let slip (Quins led 20-0) and we played really well for 75 of the 80 minutes.

“We did want to progress in the LV Cup as that was another route into the European competitions, and having already gone out of the Heineken Cup we did not want another cup exit, so everyone was pretty disappointed.”

The Londoners will once again be without their England contingent for the trip to Kingsholm.

And fly-half Evans admitted the performance of the Quins trio of Danny Care, Nick Easter and Ugo Monye in the 30-17 defeat of Wales had given everyone in the camp a lift.

He added: “It is great being able to watch a game and cheer your mates on and I thought all three did really well.

“Obviously having a Quins involvement makes the game more interesting and it certainly reflects well on us.

“I think that game will have kept the wolves away from the door for a while and hopefully they can kick on.”

Harlequins’ next three matches: Feb 13 Gloucester (a), 20 Northampton (h), 28 London Irish (a), Mar 6 Worcester (h)