Jack Maslen believes his young Harlequins colleagues can be proud of their performance at 2014 World Club Sevens over the weekend in Twickenham despite losing in the final of the Shield competition.

Quins were demoted to the third minor competition after losing all of their three group stage matches on Saturday to DHL Western Province, RC Enisei and New York City, respectively.

Captain for Saturday Sam Stuart, 22, expressed his disappointment at his side’s early exit at the main competition: “Results have been disappointing but I’m sure the lads will learn from this,” he said.

However the Twickenham-based side had a better run in Sunday’s Shield competition. They overcame Australia’s Super Rugby champions NSW Waratahs 26-19 before losing to Seattle 28-14 in the final.

And despite a brace of tries from Gavin Dampies, late points from Milse Craigwell and Michael Palefou sealed the match for the Americans.

"It's a good learning curve for the young boys,” said Maslen, who was a guest player from National League 2 South outfit Worthing RFC.

“There's a lot who are from the Quins academy and it's a great experience being at Twickenham.

"For the team it was pretty gutting and for me personally I'm a bit disappointed, I missed a couple of tackles and they were decisive ones where they got straight clean run-ins.

"In terms of the team performance I think we played well at times and it clicked today, on Saturday we were still getting to know each other a little bit."