Quinssa Meet the Playing Squad - Report Part 3
By Artemis
August 21 2009
In the third instalment, a panel consisting of Tony Diprose (TD), Colin Osbourne (CO), John Kingston (JK) and Will Skinner (WS) fielded questions from the audience about players and the forthcoming season.
Q1 – Moving on form what we have been talking about, how do you as a coaching panel set about preparing line out-moves etc, where previously you might have had a blocker or something slightly dodgy, how do you find the balance between what we’ve been caught doing and what we will do going forward? (huge laughter!)
JK – I’m paranoid anyway! All sorts of things go through my mind, from calling different calls when we’re warming up even on match day. I think we are reasonably bullet proof on that front and have been for a while because nobody could be more paranoid than I am about it. We of course will keep within 50 yards, no more, of the opposition in future, promise not to watch them play or do line-outs, scrums or anything like that in the future. Honestly it’s not something that’s entered our heads or thought process, we get a lot of information videos, DVDs are freely available so it’s a pretty open game, seeing all the teams playing and what they are doing and not doing, in the way that it is covered.
Q2 – After the disappointment of the 7’s on Saturday at Middlesex. How is the morale of the squad? Is it good? IS it disappointed? Or what?
WS – Of course not.
Q2 - Well I hope not, otherwise these people here are wasting there time if it is!
WS - It’s been good for the last 3 months. Since we came back, some of the guys from tour some of the guys from holiday. It’s been brilliant all summer.
Q2 - I echo the lady here, if you do as well this season as you did last season you’re going to get the most terrific support you’ve ever known
WS - I thought you were going to say something else then!
Q3 – We’re obviously going to get a lot of stick from supporters of the opposition through the year, and we can take that. Does the team or management expect similar stick from other teams, players or management, or will they be think “ there but for the grace of God go we”?
TD – I think there will be a bit of “ there but for the grace of God”, in the same way as I think people would have been naïve to presume that Matt Stevens was the only player who may have had issues with taking some sort substance, which has sort of been proven. People would be naïve to think that things haven’t gone on in the past would have gone on. But hopefully it’ll have had a line drawn under it. From taking stick point of view, the players have got a pretty thick skin, the management have an even thicker one, it kind of goes with the territory a little bit, I think the biggest key issue for us is our performance on the pitch, out thought process in the last couple of months, since the guys have been back, obviously some of the guys have come back later, with Ugo and the Lions and the guys who’ve been with England and the other countries, but the big focus for us is improving our performance from last year. We we’re really pleased with a lot of aspects of last year, obviously we were disappointed at the end not to have taken that further step, but from our side it’s very much about trying to improve and that’s going to be pretty tough considering we finished 2nd in the league and made the Quarter-Finals, but that’s our aim. We want to make sure we are improving as a club and improving our performance.
Q3 – I would like to know, did you stand on a chair when you flattened Harrison?
WS – Mark briefed me on this one and it’s a definite “No Comment!”
Q4 – Regarding the Harrison incident, what exactly was your costume, Transformer or telly tubby?
WS – It was a Transformer. If anyone wants help making one, it was pretty good.
Q5 – Is Tani Fuga staying on this season?
WS – Yeah and I believe it’s his testimonial year this year.
Q6 – Which of the other premier league clubs is the dark horse, the one you’re looking forward to playing this season?
JK – Wasps, Leicester, Saracens, Newcastle, who’s after that, Bath, I don’t know really. Don’t care about them overly. Just reflecting on what Dippers was talking about earlier. If you throw your mind back 12 months and ask yourself whether you thought Quins would finish second in the league and whether they would make the Quarter Finals of the Heineken cup, losing by a point. I think there’d be an awful lot of people in here, saying blooming heck we’ve made massive strides in the last 12 months as a club. And we cannot do anything about what has gone over the last few months, other than take a sigh of big relief that we can draw a line, if we can. What we want to do, is take further what we’re about. We back ourselves as a group of people. These players are very very special, they have a massive spirit within themselves, it’s not just about great ability or about belief, it’s not about being organised, its actually about a belief as a group of people which is why time after time last year they produced the goods and frankly over achieved over and over again, against the expectations that were there. If any of those clubs out there that are looking to achieve, they’ll be looking at Harlequins and saying to themselves “how did they finish that far ahead of us”, “how did we not finish further” in Leicester’s case. We will look to improve some more and make life even harder for them, there is no reason why we can’t have an incredibly exciting season and as a group of people we have resolved that we can be anything. That is what we keep saying to each other “we can be anything” and that is what we want to achieve and as for the other lot, frankly, I don’t care, it’s more even then ever and we’re going to turn in even more and make sure you lot have some damn enjoyable afternoons because that is what we want.
Q7 – One of things Quinssa is really keen on is supporting the Academy. Can you give us any words on who is coming through, how strong we what developments you’ve got planned?
TD – The bloke sitting next to me(CO) is a lot to do with that in term so of what has gone on before and you can see what has gone on before, Ugo Monye, Mike Brown, Tom Williams Chris Robshaw all of those guys have come through that system. It has been entrusted to me, orhe shipped out and took a payrise, basically. In terms of the players coming through, we have 15 guys who are full time with us in the academy, the top end of that is your Seb Steggmans and he still comes under the banner of academy even though he beens here a few years, and god willing, when he’s fit we’ll see some of those aprks we saw from him at the end of last year. There was some real young talent on show at the weekend, Ross Chisholm has already been mentioned, coming in and playing at full back, Sam Smith was out there, Chris York, George Lowe. Some of you would have watched the sevens and seen Ollie Lyndsey-Hague perform in that. There are some real talents. We’ve also got, although they are probably hidden away and may be hidden away for a few years, we’ve also got four or five really big front row players and they’ll take a little bit longer to develop, but the likes of Darryl Marfo, Will Collier Rob Buchanan, Dan Frazier, we have high hopes for them, but as a front row forward thats going to take a little big longer. I’m pretty confident, I suppose it is a conveyor belt, and it is something that is key, the biggest part for me, if you look through our squad at the moment, there are fifty players, if you take first team players and academy players, Nearly 50 % are either in the academy or have been in the academy here at Harlequins and that is something that’s not just what I’ve been doing these last few years, but what Colin did before that and Tony Russ before that. What is crucial for the club is that it continues and continues to improve and that’s my charge in terms of the academy, it’s the job that I do. I’m pretty confident in what we do that it is improving and I pretty confident there are some good players. You could probably ask some of the guys (playing squad), we have had 25 – 30 guys who are 15 – 18 working on the pitch opposite to where the first team players are all over the summer during there holidays and there ambition is to be the next Danny Care or Ugo Monye.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.
I did like that first question
BTW: are there any photos from the evening?