Harlequins head coach Jason Gilmore has urged his team to continue their recent improvement as they look to recover from a woeful start to the season.

Quins are bottom of the Prem table after losing their first three matches.

Gilmore’s side were on the end of a 48-0 thrashing by Gloucester on 3 October, but were better against Sale on Sunday, leading for most of the match before being beaten by a late penalty.

They will open their European Challenge Cup campaign with a home match against Vannes this weekend, and Gilmore is hoping for a much-needed win.

“Across the first six games, I think we’ve been building solid,” he told BBC Radio London.

“But what I want to see is that continued improvement, because that was a game that got away from us at the weekend – we led the whole way until the 73rd minute.”

Harlequins’ poor start to this campaign follows a disappointing ninth-placed finish in the Prem last season.

The loss at Gloucester was the club’s heaviest league defeat for 26 years.

European competition may now prove to be a welcome distraction from their domestic problems and Gilmore believes a win might prove to be a turning point.

“It’s a competition that we want to have a good crack at,” he added.

“It’s important that we have a good start. We’re at home, want to put on a good performance in front of our supporters and get ourselves into the competition.

“We want to be off to a good start in the Challenge Cup and want to be bouncing back in the Prem pretty quickly.

“They look like a classic French team; really big forward pack, love their ball, big at scrum – quite awkward at scrum – and love to play it unstructured.

“So we know that up front we’re going to have to bring our physicality again, which I was happy with at the weekend, and have got to make sure we’re on our toes with any ground-ball or counter-attack opportunities.

“That’s what we felt we really lacked against Gloucester. I felt against Sale, particularly in the first 30 minutes, that we generated good try-scoring opportunities because we carried hard through the middle.”