Fly-half Adrian Jarvis may be winning the fight for Harlequins' number 10 shirt - despite his off-day with the boot on Saturday.

Jarvis, picked ahead of the more experienced Chris Malone, missed a succession of kicks to cost his side 11 first-half points and leave Saturday's crunch clash with Worcester Warriors in the balance at the halfway point.

At one stage, Jarvis stepped aside to allow Mike Brown a shot at goal, but he recovered to control a match Quins eventually won comfortably, thanks to tries from Steve So'oialo, Tosh Masson and Tom Williams.

And 24-year-old Jarvis won the backing of director of rugby Dean Richards, who said: "His kicking wasn't particularly great, but his game management in many respects was excellent.

"The way he got the back line going was very, very good.

"Sometimes you just have days like that. Until now, his kicking has been outstanding."

Will Skinner, whose own performance was described as "outstanding" by Richards, also praised Jarvis for the way he came through his ordeal.

"The worst thing you can do is to tell Adrian not to do anything, because, if you do, the likelihood is his confidence in other parts of his game will deteriorate," Skinner said.

"It didn't and, towards the end of the game, he came back and hit two or three great kicks. He showed great character to get through it."

Meanwhile, Skinner believes Quins - who visit Saracens this Sunday - should be targeting a top-four finish in the Guinness Premiership.

"We always said this is the start of the season again and we couldn't have done any better by getting the bonus point to set ourselves up for the next few games," he said.

"It is always hard making predictions but at the start of the year we targeted top six at least and we want to be in the top four ideally.

"We are in a good position to move up the league we've just got to work hard and stay fit."