Harlequins 46-11 Leeds Carnegie
By Sundance
April 12 2010
Sunshine and a six try win. This was a return to the happy days of last season for Harlequins. With Premiership status now secure the team can relax and look up the table, although sixth place and Heineken Cup qualification is probably just out of reach.
However the team must now go into the Saracens game with their confidence up. It would be wonderful for them to get revenge for that awful match at the Stoop last September. Quins’ away form has not been impressive this year but, with Welford Road unlikely to yield any points, Wembley has to offer an outside chance of a win.
The green shoots of confident running rugby that popped up last week against Newcastle, burst into bloom against Leeds and the home side were very good value for their bonus point, scoring tries from first phase, in close, out wide, and from turnover ball. All the sort of things we got used to seeing last season.
The back three of Strettle, Williams and Brown contributed four tries while Strettle, enjoying one of his best games for a long time, also made one for Lowe. Alongside that there was an impressive driving maul from the forwards to put Brooker in.
All this despite a masterclass in negative refereeing from Dean Richards who slowed the game down at every opportunity.
He made his presence felt early on, twice hauling back Danny Care when he tried to take quick taps. The third time Care had the opportunity, he shaped to tap and run, looked at Richards and decided not to bother. There was a huge sense of frustration building up. It’s bad enough when a livewire scrum half is stopped from his running game by underhand spoiling tactics, such as in last year’s play-off game. But when pernickety refereeing makes him come back and restart half a yard from where he took the original quick tap, you wonder what the likes of Richards think they are on the pitch for. Surely we all want to see running rugby don’t we?
There was another poor moment involving an official when the touch judge missed a clear kick out on the full from Care and had to be redirected back to where the kick had been taken.
On top of that, Richards seemed to be guessing at the scrums which seemed to end in a penalty or free kick every single time. It’s maybe not fair to single him out as there seems to be a real problem with refereeing scrums at the moment and the number of resets and penalties makes for a poor game. At one scrum Leeds had the early charge on and moved forward so fast the scrum half almost put the ball into his number 8’s feet but Richards was happy to let that one go.
Scrums are a complete lottery and too many games are affected by it.
Champagne rugby
Anyway, enough of that old chestnut as there were many better moments to focus on. Not least of which was Strettle screaming down the wing for his try. Another was the prolonged and heartfelt reception for Gomarsall when he came on. A third was the brutal hand-off by Lewis Stevenson who seems to have relished the step up to Premiership rugby this year.
A further plus point was Skinner who was back to his livewire self. At times this season he has seemed off the pace, dealing with injuries and unable to make decisive impacts on matches. This time he chased and tackled everything.
Evans once more looked a special player, kicking all but one of his kicks, firing out passes and always running with dangerous intent. His quick line-out to Brown led to the first try for Tom Williams.
Speaking of Williams, he again showed what a good all round player he is. Strong in the tackle, quick and inventive with the ball in hand. At one point he made a lovely break, including a neat sidestep to burst past two or three men. In the second half he messed up a Leeds backs move, got his boot to the ball and hacked it on twice to enable Brown to score.
Such opportunism could have made the scoreline even worse for Leeds as two or three more breakaway chances nearly fell to Quins in the closing minutes.
But that would have been harsh on the visitors who hung on well for much of the game and were only really put to the sword when they went a man short after Calum Clark was sent to the sinbin for a late hit on Evans.
Quins scored three tries and 19 points while they had the extra man. First Evans found Strettle on a run from deep off his wing to put Lowe over. Then four minutes later the pack drove a mall 25 yards to the line for Brooker to make the score. Two minutes after that Williams footwork put Brown away.
O’Shea shuffle
New DOR Conor O’Shea made full use of the bench. All three starting front row players were substituted. Stevenson and York came on for Robson and Guest. Late on Dickson, Clegg and Mordt were a triple substitution for Care, Evans and JTH.
Deano sometimes attracted criticism for sticking with his core players, sometimes stubbornly so. O’Shea here showed a willingness to give the whole squad game time.
The last three games of the season could yet provide a good springboard for next time round and allow the long suffering fans to enjoy an optimistic summer, instead of the misery of last July and August.
Finally, an honourable mention to Rabeni who was almost devastating in the first half when Leeds gained the upper hand for a period of several minutes. Almost every time he got the ball he broke through tackles or got round his man. Fortunately Quins’ last ditch defence held firm, aided by some woolly finishing from Leeds when they made overlaps and it seemed inevitable they would score.
| First half | ||
| 8 | Evans pen | 3-0 |
| 12 | Willams try, Evans con | 10-0 |
| 25 | Evans pen | 13-0 |
| 28 | Thomas pen | 13-3 |
| 35 | Thomas missed pen | |
| Second half | ||
| 52 | Brown try, Evans con | 20-3 |
| 60 | Thomas pen | 20-6 |
| 62 | Late hit on Evans, Clark to the bin | |
| 63 | Lowe try, Evans con | 27-6 |
| 67 | Brooker try, missed con | 32-6 |
| 69 | Brown try, Evans con | 39-6 |
| 72 | Strettle try, Clegg con | 46-6 |
| 79 | Leeds try (To’oala), missed con | 46-11 |
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Follow your spirit: and upon this charge,
Cry — God for Harry! England and Saint George
Quote:four minutes later the pack drove a mall 25 yards
That was more of a shove than I thought it was!
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