LV= Report: Harlequins 26-19 London Irish
By AlanQuin
October 16 2011
Fifteen changes to the match-day twenty-three was evidence that Conor O’Shea was rotating the squad. Could the youngsters emulate their seniors and continue Harlequins’ winning run to a seventh successive match? They proved most emphatically that they could by defeating a strong London Irish side, with six internationals in the starting fifteen, by 26 – 19, the winning score coming several minutes after the clock was showing zero!
The young Quins went off with pace and ambition, as expected, and were soon deep in the visitors’ half with Clegg making good, imaginative passes in an attempt to pierce the Exiles’ defence. It was a break by Clegg and an offload to Urdapilleta which produced the first try as the centre dummied to the left and then sliced through to the line. Clegg added the extras. 7- 0 after seven minutes.
Both sides were trying to run, but Quins had the bulk of the possession. The Irish, however, had experience and were not outdone in intention with Topsy Ojo as their main strike weapon. The winger was well marked though and failed to pierce the Quins’ defences. A series of penalties produced points as Homer started the Irish score moving with two successful kicks from three attempts before Clegg kicked one for Quins and missed another leaving the half-time score at 10 – 6.
The scores moved slowly in the second half with each kicker slotting two penalties to take the score to 16 – 12 as the game entered the final quarter. By now, too, Irish has begun to bring on impact players from the bench and began to exert pressure through the pack. A series of drives took them to the Quins line and after some determined over the line but strong defence prevented the score as the ball was held up. Another drive from the back of the scrum saw the Irish again held up over the line but the third attempt produced a try that Homer converted.
London Irish had the lead with six minutes remaining when Ollie Lindsay-Hague replaced Tom Williams. Quins attacked again and a successful penalty kick by Clegg levelled the score at 19 – 19 with about three minutes of full time remaining.
As the clock ticked down to zero, both teams continued to play with intent on victory. Then with time long expired Charlie Matthews intercepted the ball, passed to Casson whose onward pass found Stegmann on a run up the wing into the Irish half. Although tackled by Homer he was able to offload to a flying Lindsay- Hague who continued to score the dramatic wining try under the posts, bringing The Stoop crowd to their feet in unbelieving delight. The simple conversion was the final kick of the match.
After the match Conor O’Shea was clearly delighted with the win.” I am unbelievably proud of those players," O'Shea said. "Results always tend to colour your overall reaction to a game, but I had already turned to John Kingston and Tony Diprose and told them how proud we should all be of the lads, and we were losing at that moment. When you consider for example, that we had 19 and 20 year-old locks out there in Sam Twomey and Charlie Matthews up against England forward Nick Kennedy and former All Black Bryn Evans, they did themselves proud.
"We made a number of changes and Irish were a more experienced side than us as a result, but Rory Clegg came in for Nick Evans, played very well and kicked his goals. But then he spent extra hours on the training pitch during the week, hours we didn't demand of him, practising his kicking. He's a very young man with a very professional attitude.
"I was also proud of their determination to keep the ball alive after Rory had equalised for 19- 19 near the end. The easy option would have been to kick to touch and settle for staying unbeaten, but they had the courage to keep pushing for the winning score."
Asked about bringing on Lindsay-Hague so late in the game, he said “I wanted a bullet and that’s what he is. That is why he is a sevens star.”
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Ollie "Bullet" Lindsay-Hague
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One of the founder members of the Q-GOMC (promoted to Major Grump) – and proud of it - Bah!
thought williams was a bit anonymous, probably understandably after a long lay off. great perseverence, great attitude and some lovely play. urdapiletta was very good, and wallace yet again immense, this time at 6