Lost in the Fog: Harlequins 16-20 Saracens

By DOK
December 28 2006

Well, the talk at the press conference afterwards was "Who actually deserved to win that game?" Was it Harlequins for their attacking pressure, territory and possession? Or was it Saracens for their dogged defence and their ability to take the few chances that came their way?

I have to say the journalists/photographers seemed pretty evenly split. Except for Julian Easterbrook of course who doesn't deign to lower himself to actually talking to anyone else (or maybe they all ignore him 'cos he's not a "real" journo! :-) ).

So, who can remember the game? It was a dark and foggy night... From the half way line you could see the West side of the pitch more of less OK, down to the try lines OK, but the East side and the far corners were hard to see. This didn't stop the eagle eyed among the Lexus proffering Sean Davey advice and disagreement even when he was lost in the mists on the far side.

Still, we were all perfectly positioned to see the first try. Harlequins recovered their own kick off, promptly coughed up the ball, the backs were all aligned for an attacking move, Farrell shifted the ball to Jackson, he chipped over the flat Harlequins line, there was no-one at home behind them, Dan Scarbrough and Thomas Castaignède charged through the line, while Hal Luscombe turned with what seemed like the grace and speed of a supertanker, Scarbrough stuck out a foot to beat Hal to the ball, Castaignède scampered past the both of them and there we were, 0-5 down with less than a minute gone from the countdown clock. Jackson slotted a difficult conversion from the touchline, 0-7.

I looked at my son Mark, he looked at me and you could see we were both thinking "Here we go again!". Still, we didn't want to jinx the lads, so sucking in great lungfuls of air we responded "Har-le-Quins" like Pavlovian dogs with every toot on Melvin's horn.

This time we used our weapon of choice to get rid of possession by kicking the ball straight to Thomas Castaignède, Saracens responded with their weapon of choice, a quick interplay between Farrell and Jackson, then the new found tactic that obviously the brave boys in the Quarters had never seen before, the chip ahead. Fijian winger Kameli Ratuvou hit the afterburners and somewhere in the fog Sean Davey gave a try. Jackson missed the conversion and we were 0-12 down with about six minutes gone on the countdown clock. This time my son and I exchanged rolling eyed grimaces and I at least was wondering if I should cut the press conference and leave at half time.

Well, I guess at this point you could say Harlequins woke up as for the next 20 minutes we camped solidly in their half and exerted a huge amount of pressure. We could have played till Xmas and we still wouldn't have scored, but at least we were keeping them a long way from our try line. OK, I admit in the process Adrian Jarvis picked up two penalties (and missed one) to give us a more respectable 6-12 score at half time, but on both sides it was a litany of fumbles, turnovers, knock ons and slow ball (of which more later). Also we had a penalty right under the posts five yards from the line, but no-one got sent to the bin.

Hope sprang eternal early in the second half when Adrian Jarvis slotted another one, 9-12 and things were at least looking like we might make a contest of it. Jarvis missed another penalty attempt and then two "features" of our season happened in quick succession. First the referee (who I thought had a good night) made a match changing call against us. He called David Strettle back from a score in the corner for a debatable forward pass. Hey, he was a lot closer than I was so I can't comment. Unlike the people near me screaming, I don't believe he was blind, didn't know the rules/laws or was in the pay of Saracens but I guess he was a tosser. How else do you decide who kicks off? Second we had a player needlessly sin binned for a professional (and totally unnecessary) foul. Mike Brown took the walk of shame and Saracens were 9-15 up from the resulting penalty.

Harlequins continued to win space, possession and territory stats without having a clue what to do next. Adrian Jarvis missed another penalty and a hopeless attempt at a drop goal, so it was no shock when he got substituted. Saracens decided that this was Christmas, and Kevin Sorrell tapped a mark off his knee instead of the boot, after an eternity Quins finally got the ball out the scrum, Mehrtens threw a long miss pass that left Brown with plenty of work to do (picking it up for a start) but he forced his way past a couple of defenders, showed his pace and got over the line. Mehrts slotted the conversion and we were ahead for the first time in the game, 16-15.

Could Harlequins hold out? That, boys and girls, is what's known as a "rhetorical" question - that is one where it looks like a question, but isn't because you already know the answer. Kameli Ratuvou gathered the ball in the Saracens half, and then played Moses while the Harlequins defence did their best impression of the Red Sea. He passed it to Skirving who dashed in unopposed. Didn't get the conversion, but we all knew the Gods that like to laugh at Harlequins weren't going to let us come back this late in the game.

I guess if you're a Tigers or Gloucester fan, losing like that really irritates you and you go home and kick the cat or something. I just looked at Mark and he kind of gave a half shrug. Harlequins seem destined to live in the relegation zone and none of Zinzan Brooke, Mark Evans, John Kingston, Mark Evans (again) or Dean Richards seem to be able to sort the psychology of the team. Crud!

So - on to the press conference! Prof was a bit unclear where it was being held (it's the Media room to the left of the reception desk in the Lexus).

Deano was up first and I'd describe him as a little tense. "What do you think?" was his snarled answer to some long, wandering question on the bleedin' obvious that Julian had the temerity to ask. Deano said we'd lost our first few line outs and given away two soft tries in the first few minutes (yes, speaking of the bleedin obvious, Deano!). We had a team with bags of potential but weren't achieving it. The referee should have sent someone off for the penalty in front of the posts (I'm sure I'm misunderstanding my notes here as I know coaches cannot criticise referees decisions). Saracens had taken their chances and their decision making under pressure was better than ours. He said he was disappointed with our naivety at kicking away possession at the end. You were disappointed Deano? You get paid to watch us underperform, the rest of us pay you! Sort it!

Asked about the AJ/Mehrts situation he said then it was never intended to always play AJ then Mehrts and that it would be the other way around over the Xmas period. He was asked if he was pleased with the progress of Stuart Abbott, and answered a very short "Yes!". Of course the new rumour that Deano would be working with Ashton at the RFU was asked about. "Is this some sort of joke?" was his response. I didn't get to ask him why Simon Keogh wasn't playing - next time maybe.

Alan Gaffney was in a much happier mood. Asked if Saracens deserved it (following on from our earlier discussions) he said "You take it and smile like you meant it”. In other words no, but he was happy to take the win. Fair play to him, his team weren't better on the night, but they were winners.