Prof's Positives: Week 10 - Bath

By The Prof
November 7 2002

So another interesting week at Quins for a number of reasons. The first team won again, the first string of three consecutive home wins for over a year! And with a rare win over Bath too (now making it W6, D1, L18)!

Having had a tricky start to the season these articles are becoming easier and easier to write and there are more and more things to be rightly positive about. First of all we won, and we won with an interesting line up – the oddest sight must have been Will Greenwood playing fly-half, or possibly Stockers fitting in at flanker for one scrum – who does he think he is Craig Chalmers?!

Two champagne moments of the game – the two tries of course, firstly Will scoring then pointing to the number on his shirt to prove he can do it, and secondly Matty Moore’s swan dive when he scored his try.

Tani Fuga had yet another great game at hooker and he put in some very big hits indeed as did his front row partner Jase – in fact Jase would have been very close to being my man of the match along side Duncombe and Fuga.

Codling made a good return to the lineout winning a lot of ball and lead to Bath having to resort to pulling down the line every time we won it.

Vos did extremely well considering he had only been in the country since Wednesday morning, and he fitted into the back row alongside Ace and Dippy with ease. Is Vos a legend in the making, is he a true replacement for Wilson? We shall see but I wouldn’t be surprised for one minute if he was.

Duncombe had a storming game, the fact that he was runaway man of the match winner both on Sky, at the ground and on this site shows what an amazing game he played. He was fast off the mark, strong in the tackle, illusive, strong in defence and set up the two tries well. Let’s hope Woodward didn’t see a tape and decide to take him away from us for too many England games – after all there is plenty of time for that.

‘Frodo’ Gollings put in a good performance on the wing, looking sharp and putting in some good kicks on a day when our kicking wasn’t that great - with even PerryGo asking for Burkey to come back it must have been bad! J

Nathan Williams dropped a ball at the back – is this a positive, well not really but the fact that he was noticed to drop a ball and that no one could remember him dropping one before is surely a good sign.

As far as the table goes we are up to the heady heights of 7th – if we go any higher I might get a nose bleed and need some oxygen! Thank God I didn’t try the Morocco Challenge!

We were also the only side to score any tries on Saturday since the weather was terrible and made handling very difficult indeed, this again must be a pretty good positive.

The first up tackling was immense with everyone putting their body on the line, as I have already said Tani and Jase both put in a series of big hits. Others worthy of note were Vos who stopped a flying Maggs in his tracks with one cruncher, Shaggy who made one tackle driving Danielli back yards before finally dumping them, Duncombe who put in a load including one that felled Grewcock in full flight and Matty Moore who followed up a chip and chase with a stonking flying tackle. The defence showed how good it was when Billy Davison was sin binned but Bath were only able to score three points. When they had 14 on the pitch we managed to score our two tries.

The support at the breakdown was very good too with the whole pack showing their mobility. The attacking play was good, even though we didn’t seem to have much possession we did use it well and we failed to convert a number of chances, either due to good Bath defence, poor conditions or ‘interesting’ refereeing. But the fact we made the chances in the first place is a good sign and shows what sterling work Paul Turner has done with the backs. JK’s influence is showing too, the quick ball from the top of the lineout was obviously a ploy to prevent Bath’s spoiling tactics in the line and it worked very well. The short line out to Nick Duncombe at the front of the line and a quick return to Fuga lead to a great break upfield with Codders and Dippy in support but sadly it was stopped by a subsequent knock on.

We made a terrible start to the game, in fact we barely did anything right for the first 26 minutes except defend well, but after a shaky start we turned the game around. Seeing Jase, Will, Vos, Dippy and Nick talking to the rest of the team all the time obviously helped the communication within the team. The fact the Will seemed to be telling the referee to calm down at one point certainly brought a smile to my face.

The support from the crowd was good – how nice was it to hear chants going back and forward between the West and East Stands? Vos even mentioned how good the vibe from the supporters was. Another good thing to hear was the noise from the minis players that formed the tunnel as the players ran out – well done to the Community staff for arranging what must be a great day out for the kids.

Vos showed what a top bloke he was by doing a TV interview straight after the game and then going out onto the pitch to sign autographs for the kids on the pitch (as did the rest of the team), he was then to be found in the bar after the game chatting with fans.

In the rest of the club both the U21s and the Amateurs lost disappointing games, but the ladies showed the way forward with a huge victory away against Newbury – their first league win of the season. The Ladies scored 44 unanswered points and didn’t fade towards the end as they have had a tendency to do in previous games.

The defence was strong all day and even when under pressure didn’t give in, the scrum which was at a weight disadvantage, performed well and Suzie Seymour-Smith stole a few against the head (and she got the sequin of the week award too). The lineouts did well and the trio of Louise Clancy, Helen Cushion and Viks ensured that the latter put in another Codders like performance this week (although whether she hurt her leg again I am not sure). The England U19 Leah Carey put in another fine performance with her strong running from the back of the scrum and by all accounts it was a fine team performance.

Other positives this weekend included a good write up about Quins in England Rugby Magazine (issue 4) including an interview with Sleepy Hollow and Binky and photos of lots of boarders. Cameron Steele’s article in the match programme was as funny and informative as ever. In other parts of the media Melvin and Fletch were shown on Sky in full flow in the West Stand and a number of brave poncho wearers were seen too. The Sky cameraman in front of the West Stand also did very well taking a catch with one hand in difficult conditions.

On the injury front everyone is a week closer to playing again, with Burkey being very close and Luger not too far off either. It also seems like our hooker crisis may be starting to alleviate with Woody and Hayter being due back any moment.

Here’s to Will and Jase being in a successful England team, them coming through uninjured and to a successful trip to Sarries.