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Harlequins

Saturday 29th October 2005

Earth Arena

Kick Off 3.00pm

Andre Bester is keeping his cards close to his chest this week! He will not announce his side until one hour before kick off. He has however named a 26 man squad for Saturday.

Ledowyk Strauss is the only player out of last weeks 22 that is not available. Added to the 21 others are, Morne Jonker, Attie Pienaar, Hendre Fourie, John Holtby and Rob Walton.

Titans Squad

Carter, Strettle, Mitchell, Blackett (Capt.), Claasens, WP Strauss, Bedford, Carey, Hanna, Hopcroft, Bornman, McGowan, Donald, Cochrane, Hala’ufia, Kirkwood, Whitehead, Golding, Conroy, Rawson, McComb, Jonker, Pienaar, Fourie, Holtby, Walton.

Harlequins Squad

15. Gavin Duffy 14. Simon Keogh 13. Tosh Masson 12. Mel Deane 11. Ugo Monye 10. Andrew Mehrtens 9. Steve So’oialo 1. Ceri Jones 2. Tani Fuga 3. Ricky Nebbett 4. Jim Evans 5. Simon Miall 6. Andre Vos (Capt.) 7. Luke Sherriff 8. Nick Easter

Replacements:
16. Jimmy Richards 17. Lorne Ward 18. Kevin Burke 19. Chris Robshaw 20. Ian Vass 21. Mike Brown 22. Tom Williams

There’s no question who’s the form team of the moment. Harlequins, who are experiencing life outside the top tier of English rugby for the first time this season, have won all seven of their league games in National one.

Obvious danger men for the Quins are Ugo Monye and Simon Keogh with eight and six tries each already this season. But the threat doesn’t stop there. So far nineteen different players have registered points for the Londoners this season.

Kiwi fly half Andrew Mehrtens is still a quality player and unsurprisingly is having a fine year to date. Until last week his kicking rate was around the 90% mark, but even the best can have an off day.

Rotherham on the other hand has won four out of their seven games so far. The key however for the Yorkshire outfit is they are improving week after week. Ideally they perhaps would prefer this game a couple of months down the road. The team would then have had extra time to gel and the winter pitches would probably suit Roth more than it would Quins.

Rotherham will take encouragement that their defence is getting tighter, as this is surely going to be tested at the weekend. Also the Roth back line must be one of the quickest in the division, so any turnovers around halfway, could be severely punish by the Laners.

If Rotherham are going to get the result that will make people sit up and notice, then all 22 players are going to have be at the very top of their game. It’s not impossible and with an expected large crowd roaring them on, it just may be a day to remember.

Roth Admin Prediction: Roth by a point!

PREVIOUS MEETINGS

Rotherham 15-43 Harlequins (20 September 03)

Rotherham 12-32 Harlequins (17 March 01)

Harlequins 26-13 Rotherham (26 August 00)

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