Quins pull the plug on Bath

By KevT
November 3 2002

NEC Harlequins beat Bath 18–9 at a rain soaked Stoop on Saturday. Tries from Will Greenwood and Matt Moore and two penalties and a conversion from Nathan Willams saw Quins take four points and move to seventh in the Zurich Premier League. Bath scored three penalties from the boot of Ollie Barkley.

But Quins coach Mark Evans wasn’t entirely happy with the performance. “I thought we should have beaten them by more. For the first twenty minutes we were so bad it wasn’t funny. We only started to play in the last sixty minutes after Billy Davison was sin binned. But I don’t want to be too critical as conditions were terrible.”

Former South African Captain Andre Vos had arrived on Wednesday from South Africa but Quins played the first twenty minutes as though they were still in the departure lounge. Mike Tindall went through a missed tackle from Nick Greenstock in the first minute. Tindall off loaded the ball but only to Quins Full Back Nathan Williams. Who held on to the ball for too long in the tackle and was penalised by the referee. The resulting penalty was just pulled to the left of the posts from inside the Quins ten metre line.

A couple of minutes later and Bath were attacking Quins again. A cross field kick from Malone was caught by Bill Satala but off loaded poorly to Nathan Williams. Bath were awarded a penalty as Quins held on and Bath opted to take a scrum. They knocked on and Quins were able to clear their lines.

The next five minutes saw Quins kicks from Williams and Will Greenwood (playing his first Premier League match at Fly Half) failing to find touch. From one of those missed touches Bath attacked down their left hand side through Danielli. Bill Davison made the tackle but failed to roll away and was sent to the sin bin. This was in the sixteenth minute and seemed a bit harsh as Quins had not been warned or penalised for this offense before. Bath kicked to the corner from the penalty and won the ball from the resulting line out. A fine tackle on his own twenty two by Will Greenwood, who was excellent in defence all day, spilled the ball and gave Quins a scrum.

Bath continued to attack but without creating a genuine try scoring opportunity. In the 19th minute Tani Fuga was penalised for offside and Ollie Barkley converted the penalty in front of the posts to enable Bath to take a 0 – 3 lead.

For the first time in the match an excellent kick to the Bath corner from Nathan Williams saw Quins near the Bath line. Borthwick won the line out for Bath and Perry cleared to the Bath twenty two. Quins were awarded a scrum on their right hand side of the pitch on the Bath twenty two. The team ran a trade mark Paul Turner inspired move which saw the ball travel from Duncombe to Greenwood and back to Duncombe who released Matt Moore into space. He was offloaded to Nathan Williams who was brilliantly tackled and held up over the line by Ollie Barkley.

Bill Davison returned to the match and Quins began to exert pressure. A scrum in the Bath twenty two saw Quins drive the ball to their line but they were held up five metre short. Nick Duncombe tried to go round a pile of bodies on the floor but was left isolated a conceded a penalty for not releasing.

In the 34th minute, Bath Prop Simon Emms was penalised for bringing down a driving maul on his own twenty two (not the first or last time this would happen) and was sin binned. Quins won the line out and drove to the Bath line. Five metres short Nick Duncombe took the ball from the maul and popped a flat pass to Will Greenwood who stretched over the line through a Kevin Maggs tackle to score. Nathan Williams converted and Quins were leading 7 – 3.

Quins won the re start and advanced into the Bath half. A driving maul moved Quins into the Bath twenty two. Nick Duncombe again took the ball and jinked laterally drawing in defenders. He offloaded to Greenwood who threw a lovely floated pass to Satala. Quins had a three on one overlap and Satala released Matt Moore who flopped over the line to score. Williams missed the conversion and Quins led 12 – 3. It was half time and Quins had taken full advantage of their man advantage by scoring twelve points.

At half time Bath replaced Dan Lyle with Beattie. In the 42nd minute Vos was penalised at a line out and Ollie Barkley slotted home the penalty to make the score 12 –6. Simon Emms returned from the sin bin and both sides traded kicks. In the 47th minute Bath replaced Danielli with Voyce but Quins continued to exert pressure. Nick Duncombe made a break to the Bath twenty two and Will Greenwood chipped the ball over the Bath line. Mike Tindall managed to muscle out Nick Greenstock to touch down over his own line.

In the 52nd minute Bath attacked and Vos was penalised for hands in the ruck and Barkley narrowed the score to 12 – 9. Quins then replaced Laurent Gomez with Bruce Starr. Quins pressure resulted in another penalty which Williams missed from the left hand side. Quins won the resulting restart and Bath were penalised for being offside in front of their posts. Williams extended the Quins lead to 15 – 9.

Matt Moore intercepted a Bath attack in his own half and instead of going straight for the line cut inside Malone who he could have beaten for pace. He was then caught on the angle by a Barkley tackle.

Quins continued to try and press home their advantage. A lovely break from Nick Duncombe (who was becoming increasingly prominent) saw Quins enter the Bath half. Greenwood passed to Satala who tried to kick the ball forward through a tackle but only succeeded in knocking on.

In the 62nd minute Bath attacked Quins through Matt Perry and won a penalty on the left hand side. They decided to kick for touch and won the resulting line out. Cooper passed to Malone who missed the drop goal opportunity. Nathan Thomas was replaced by Andy Lloyd.

Quins pressure was not being converted into points. Williams missed another penalty and a Quins three on one overlap was wasted when Satala threw a pass behind Williams with Ben Gollings also free on his outside. Bath were within a converted score until the 76th minute when Quins were awarded a penalty and Williams made the kick to extend the lead to 18 – 9.

Bath upped the pace but lost two line outs on the Quins five metre line on their own throw to Alex Codling who had competed well in the line out all afternoon.

The referee blew the whistle and Quins were deserved winners.

Mark Evans was disappointed that Quins “butchered a number of chances in the second half. Matt Moore should have gone straight for the line when he intercepted. We (Williams) should have grounded in the first half and we missed a three on one overlap. Nathan (Williams) did well to make that pressure kick at the end but we miss Paul Burke who I think is the best kicker in the league.”

“Will wasn’t bad (at Fly Half). He likes playing ten and was disappointed that he had to make his debut here in that position in such awful conditions. He’d like a go on a really dry day and I might have trouble in getting the jersey back off him. But he’ll be off with England for the next three weeks and I don’t think I’ll give him the jersey back.”

“I thought Vos was terrific. Sky tell me headed the tackle count with thirteen tackles. He looked in great shape and was good in the contact area. I was really, really pleased with him but I knew I would be. He’s a world class player.”

“Nick Duncombe is twice the player he was last year. He’s really worked hard on his game. He was thrust into the international arena and nine months on he is a much better player. The sevens (English Commonwealth Games team) has really helped him. He has time on the ball, a lovely pass and is a great running player. He’s probably not up there with the three very good England squad players and he’s not a great kicker but he will be up there. He’s a class act and very strong for his size.”

I asked Mark whether he felt there was more grit about the team. “There’s more depth. We have seven players out who would all make the starting twenty two. The players are getting to know each other better. I know I keep saying this but we only had seven players on our books two and a half years ago. The really good sides have been together a while.I like the fact that we can have seven players out and still win a match. You’re in trouble when you have three players out and think you’re stuffed.”

“Bath didn’t look as though they were going to score. There are a lot of good going to get caught at the bottom. In this league you’ve got to win you’re home games. We play Sarries away next week and they’ll b e expecting to win (smile to himself). If we can get something there then that’ll be great.”

“We’ll be without Leonard and Greenwood next week but other teams will be hit worse by international call ups. Burke will probably be back in two weeks but Slemen should be back next week.”

Bath coach Brian Smith thought that this was Bath’s worst performance of the season. “It wasn’t a very professional performance today. We failed to put pressure into points. We didn’t have enough respect for the conditions and made too many unforced errors. We knew we had to have better field position and turned over too much possession in our own half.”

“ I was pleased with our half backs. Losing Catty beforehand was a disruption but not an excuse. Catty wanted to play but our Physio wouldn’t let him. If he’d played he could have been out for three to four weeks. We took the decision out of his hands. Tindall has a strained calf but he and Catty should be okay for next week. We took Tindall off as a precaution.”

“Quins capitalised on our naïve defence. Individuals are letting us down. Too many people didn’t turn up. We’ve been loyal to players to provide stability but we’ll pick on form now. We’re not getting enough mileage out of our back three. Perry has done okay. This week was a watershed for people on their last chances.”

This was a tough match for both sides in tough conditions. Quins missed touch too much in the first twenty minutes. They missed a number of chances and a better side than Bath would have punished them. Quins defence was improved by the addition of Vos who made some crucial tackles. Greenwood at fly half also tackled very well. It provided an interesting comparison to Burke’s tackling. He made the right percentage decisions which in the conditions was important. Duncombe was definitely Man of the Match and was everywhere, whether bossing the mauls of feeding Greenwood or making breaks. He also made a couple of great covering tackles. Both Greenstock and Satala did well in defence but were disappointing in attack. Williams was sound in defence but missed too many touch kicks. He made three out of seven place kicks but made the crucial kick under pressure late in the second half.

The front five performed well. Tani was great again in the loose and the line outs worked well. Codling was again outstanding. The back row played well and Vos was everything we had hoped for (without the cape, blue tights and red pants).

Bath were very disappointing but this was a match that last season might have slipped away. Points on the board are what counts and with seven players including Luger, Burke, Wood, Sanderson and Bell to come back we can be optimistic for the rest of the season.


NEC Harlequins 15. N Williams 14. M. Moore 13. V. Satala 12. N Greenstock 11. B. Gollings 10. W. Greenwood 9. N. Duncombe 1. J. Leonard 2. T. Fuga 3. L. Gomez (B. Starr 53 mins) 4. B. Davison 5. A. Codling 6. A. Tiatia 7. A. Vos 8. T. Diprose

Bath 15. M. Perry 14. Danielli (Voyce 47 mins) 13. M. Tindall (A. Crockett 75 mins) 12. K Maggs 11. O. Barkley 10. Malone 9. Cooper 1. S. Emms 2. J. Humphreys ( A Long 67 mins) 3. A Galasso 4. D. Grewcock (Capt) 5. S. Borthwick 6. J. Scaysebrook 7 N Thomas (A Lloyd 63 mins) 8. D Lyle (Beattie 40 mins)