Tigers v Quins Match Report
By hww27
October 9 2011
The matchday dawned miserable, grey and rainy but the mood at Welford Road was apprehensive. Would the return of Alex Tuilagi among others propel Tigers to only their second win of the season? The visiting Quins team came as league leaders, looking for another scalp to add to their previous five wins.
The game started promisingly when just 2 minutes after kick off Boris Stankovich crossed the line, momentarily stunning the Welford Road crowd but nontheless creating a massive roar (and no doubt making a few latecomers spill their beer!!) and so the game began...
Unfortunately this stunned Quins into waking up and 2 minutes later Sam Smith replied for Harlequins after a 30 metre dash - oh sorry, wrong sport. I momentarily thought I was watching the athletics there... things got worse as Tigers defense had seemingly decided to have a quick nap allowing Seb Stegmann to run in another try on the overlap making it 14-5 after just 10 minutes. This stunned the home faithful and suddenly the away side decided to burst into song. However not to be outdone several pockets of Tigers fans decided to try and out-shout them which provided an interesting diversion for all of oooh - 30 seconds.
More bad news as Tigers lost Mathew Tait early on in the match to be replaced by Scott Hamilton who clearly thought he was competing in Dancing on Ice carrying a hot potato given the amount of times he fell over/dropped the ball. However all was forgiven on 14 minutes after when he dived over Quins line for Tigers second try which was duly converted byStaunton.
Tigers scrum began to dominate then, largely thanks to the return of the legend that is Mr Julian White and his fearsome scrummaging ability but both teams were guilty of some sloppy errors and two such errors meant penalties were exchanged with Staunton putting Tigers ahead all too briefly before Nick Evans again stepped up to restore Quins lead. Not long after a try by Alex Tuilagi gave the Tigers fans something to cheer about before being ruled out by the TMO.. Blast.
Tigers went into the interval trailing by just 2 points and left the field to plenty of cheering and encouragement by the home fans. Despite plenty of knocking on, falling over and various other incidents in the second half, Tigers managed to hold out until 60 minutes when to everyone's surprise, Nick Evans missed a penalty! It seemed that Tigers struggled to get any play in the Quins half and another penalty from Nick Evans and one for Tigers from Staunton seemed to blow the game wide open again.
A decision by Staunton to kick for goal rather than for touch from an awkward position on the right cost dearly on 67 minutes and just 6 minutes later, Harlequins sealed the game with a try from Joe Marler. Too many penalties and not enough defence seemed to be the issue with this game that could and should have been winnable - however with the news that the England players will be back imminently no doubt lifted spirits in the Tigers camp. Next up the LV Cup with a break from the league for a few weeks - hopefully with a nearer full strength team the only way is up for Tigers...
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:10:16:20:08:55 by Stephen Bath.
