A serious head injury to debutant lock James Aymer took the gloss off Oxford Harlequins’ 27-20 home victory over Weston-Super-Mare in South West 1.

Aymer came on as a first-half replacement, but was then himself substituted on 49 minutes.

He was yesterday reported to be in a stable condition at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.

Quins coach John Brodley said: “James was taken to hospital after the game suffering from concussion.

“We were relieved to hear on Sunday that his situation was no longer as serious as it had been.

“We are trying to support his family as much as we can as a club.

“He is still in there for observation and no release date has been set.

“It put our win into perspective.”

Quins have begun a full investigation into the incident which saw Aymer injured, but Brodley said they couldn’t comment any further at the moment.

It wasn’t until the final ten minutes that Quins sealed victory with wing Ollie Campbell completing a hat-trick of tries.

Fellow wing Nick Sevier put Quins ahead with an 11th-minute penalty before Aymer replaced South African No 8 Zane Du Randt, who suffered an ankle injury.

Weston caught Quins cold with a try from No 8 Dan Fry, converted by fly half Daryl Sanft.

Scrum half Anthony Cope was yellow-carded on 35 minutes, but Quins still led at half-time with Campbell beating three defenders down the line to score and Sevier converting.

Good interplay between forwards and backs created space for Campbell’s second try on 51 minutes.

Sanft’s penalty made it 15-10 before sloppy passing gifted Weston two tries for wing Chris Crichton.

Campbell’s hat-trick try levelled it at 20-20 on 70 minutes.

Five minutes later, Huw Jones and Sevier created space for fly half Andy Noyce to score the winning try, Sevier converting.