Marcus Smith is the one notable absentee in the Harlequins line-up to face Saracens on Saturday after England blocked the fly-half's selection.

By contrast, London rivals Sarries will have a full-strength side, with five England internationals in the squad including captain Owen Farrell.

In the absence of Smith, who has not been given clearance to play following the summer internationals, Tommy Allan starts following an assured display in Quins' 40-31 opening-day victory at Newcastle Falcons.

Last year’s Premiership runners-up Saracens are sure to provide a much stiffer challenge though, and winger Joe Marchant says the hosts must stick to their gameplan in what is set to be a tense encounter.

 “Anytime you play Sarries you have to play your own style of rugby, because if you try and do what they do then you’re gonna struggle,” he told the club website.

“We’ve fallen short of that in previous years trying to play their way a bit. For us, we want to keep the ball alive, throw it around a bit and try and get them to stop us.

“Everyone is so excited about it, you can tell in the week, the whole build-up, everyone just wants to get out on the pitch and do what they can against a good side.”

The sides met on three occasions last season, with Saracens coming out on top in each battle, including the Premiership semi-final, where Player of the Season Ben Earl scored a hat-trick in a 34-17 win for Mark McCall’s men.

And ahead of their latest encounter, Marchant believes that home advantage could prove decisive.

“Being at their place for the semi-final, it’s a tough place to go,” he said.

“For us being back at The Stoop, we just feel that it’s our place, our home, so if we can get a good result there that would be really good.”

On the scoresheet with Marchant in Round 1 was the impressive Lennox Anyanwu. The centre started and finished a move which began inside the Quins in-goal area, and he retains his place alongside Luke Northmore in Tabai Matson’s midfield.

And after a classy first league start for Quins, Marchant is backing academy graduate Anyanwu to make a real impact this weekend. 

“Len was awesome last weekend and his game last week against Newcastle was a combination of all the glimpses we’ve seen so far,” said teammate Marchant.

“He’s an awesome player and he’s really getting a lot of the details right which is great to see.

“He’s obviously a physical lad and he’s got great vision as well, if we get all that going on Saturday against Sarries, he’ll be absolutely flying.”

Director of Rugby Matson has largely chosen to stick with those who helped Quins to a winning start, with just three changes to his side.

Marchant, prop Will Collier and flanker Will Evans all come in, while Nick David, Wilco Louw and Tom Lawday drop out.

“It was an entertaining first blowout in Newcastle last week,” said Matson.

“In the end, we were pretty happy with the result. In that first game of the year, you want to see what you’ve been working on in pre-season put into the game and get a look at how some things work and how others don’t.

“We scored six tries, which was good, and created some opportunities with some new combinations that haven’t played together before. 

"Overall, we were pretty positive off the back of that first hit-out.”

“We have a great challenge this week against some old rivals in what should be an entertaining all-London clash in front of a sold-out Stoop."