Match preview - London Irish v Harlequins (AP) 03/09/11
By Quinten Poulsen
September 1 2011
This weekend sees the start of the new Aviva Premiership season, with London Irish hosting Harlequins at Twickenham Stadium for the first game of the weekend in the annual double header.
With the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand starting later this month most teams will be missing at least one or two of their best players, and the Exiles are a little more affected than Harlequins in this regard. In addition, Irish have released around 12 players and brought around 15 in, which given the settled nature of the Harlequins squad may represent a small advantage for us.
Both teams have had far from perfect results in their pre-season friendlies although these games don't necessarily act as an indicator to what will happen once the season gets underway. During August London Irish have beaten London Welsh but suffered losses to Biarritz and Munster. The two losses were both away games, and so no disgrace to lose those. Similarly, Harlequins lost both their away games to Castres and Ulster whilst beating Championship teams Esher and Nottingham at home.
At the start of last season Irish got off to a cracking start winning 6 of their first 7 games. I'm not quite sure what went wrong after that, but they seemed to lose their confidence, and started slipping down the table. However, they still managed to finish in a decent 6th place and qualify for the HEC. Meanwhile Quins were getting off to a poor start and were always playing catch-up from then on; and winning only 2 from 7 at the end of the season didn't exactly help our league position.
Irish have lost some quality players over the summer, notably: Seilala Mapusua (Kubota Spears, Japan), George Stowers (Ospreys), Elvis Seveali’i (Bourgoin), Steffon Armitage (Toulon), Ryan Lamb (Northampton) and Chris Malone (coach at Sydney University). Two of their better known new signings are currently away in New Zealand – Shontayne Hape and Jo Ansboro, and out of the remaining new faces I think it's fair to wonder if they're actually weaker than last season. Mind you, they do have some terrific youngsters coming through, which I think most Quins fans can relate to when it comes to managing fans' expectations!
The comings and goings at The Stoop over the summer have been fairly low key and whether the squad is stronger or weaker as a result is not too certain. Richard Bolt has come in for Dave Moore at scrum half and has looked pretty good in the pre-season games; Percy and Stevenson were both very fine locks for us but having barely seen them last season (through injury) means that we'll surely be no worse off in the locking department, more so in light of Charlie Matthews' progress. Matt Hopper is a straight swap for Cheeseman, although rather strangely Cheeseman is apparently still training with Quins despite having signed for Esher and not being dual registered. Tim Fairbrother should hopefully give us more strength at tighthead in place of Andress, but on the loosehead side it's hard to argue that we are better off without Ceri. New signing Nic Mayhew is currently injured, which leaves Mark Lambert as back up to Marler.
Anyway, to the game… Conor O'Shea was talking of the Quins style of play again this week, and nothing seems to have changed. Words such as 'tempo', 'ambition' and 'intensity' describe the team's approach on the field, and it's fair to say that we saw plenty of these last season. Now, if they can ally those things to 'winning away from home in the league' and 'closing out games they should win' then we should be in for a fine old season.
Irish too will be looking to play in a similar way and they have had much success with it in the past. Will this make for a free-flowing and exciting game? Probably not. Harlequins' defence was a real plus last season, and hopefully they'll be working at it equally hard this season. I have a feeling that defence will be key in a game in which both attacks may stutter and show some rustiness. That said, looking at the likely Irish side, I feel this is an eminently winnable game for Quins and a good start could see them settle in nicely. It's not only World Cup call ups that are missing for the Irish – they have their fair share of injuries to contend with also, so I'll go for a narrow win for Quins by less than 7 points.
Possible teams –
London Irish
15. Tom Homer
14. Topsy Ojo
13. Jonathan Joseph
12. Daniel Bowden
11. Marland Yarde
10. Adrian Jarvis
9. Paul Hodgson
1. Clarke Dermody ©
2. David Paice
3. Faan Rautenbach
4. Nick Kennedy
5. Matt Garvey
6. Kieran Roche
7. Richard Thorpe
8. Chris Hala'ufia
16. James Buckland
17. Max Lahiff
18. Leo Halavatau
19. James Sandford
20. Alex Gray
21. Darren Allinson
22. Steven Shingler
23. Adam Thompstone
Harlequins
15. Mike Brown
14. Ross Chisholm
13. George Lowe
12. Jordan Turner-Hall
11. Ugo Monye
10. Nick Evans
9. Karl Dickson
1. Joe Marler
2. Joe Gray
3. Tim Fairbrother
4. Ollie Kohn
5. George Robson
6. Chris Robshaw ©
7. Will Skinner
8. Tom Guest
16. Chris Brooker
17. Mark Lambert
18. James Johnston
19. Charlie Matthews
20. Chris York
21. Richard Bolt
22. Rory Clegg
23. Ben Urdapilleta
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.
Sadly I can't be at the game on Saturday as I'm working with no opportunity to even have a sneaky peak at the score, but I'm hoping for a great start to the season.
Come on you quins!
And QP, you do realise that we all now expect every match report to be written and up here at least 48 hours before k/o. Or else
