Harlequins 40-3 London Welsh

Quins cruise to victory over London Welsh, The Kings Of Mediocrity.Harlequins 40 – 3 London Welsh

Over the last few days the archives have been trawled and having written the ‘Home’ match report myself for our game against London Welsh in December 2005 it also came to light that the ‘Away’ fixture (that was played at The Stoop) was reported on by a one time stalwart of Come All Within, Ed Annis, who went by the board name ‘King Of Mediocrity’. Ed tragically died in October 2008 and this report is dedicated to his memory.

Under the balmy ‘Indian Summer’ evening sky the crowd has sat down, the teams are out and we can begin. And begin it did at quite a pace with Quins taking the game to London Welsh with our particular brand of offloading running rugby. Our stall was well and truly set out and after some neat work and strong running

George Robson scores after 3 and a half minutes. NEv adds the extras. 7-0 Quins.

Great work by Ugo! Welsh infringe and the resulting penalty is kicked to touch. Great pressure from Quins and Ugo is in acres of space to score, NEv converts. 14-0 to Quins with 9 minutes gone. London Welsh are being run ragged!  Welsh have the ball and chip it out on our 22, line out just kept by us and we clear our lines only for Welsh to knock on to ironic cheers! JJ is down but gets back up again. You ain’t never gonna keep him down!

Scrum to Quins on halfway. We win a penalty but NEv puts it too long so scrum to Welsh. Another Quins penalty and NEv makes no mistake this time. The penalty count is really starting to stack up against the visitors. Ugo collects the ball but is isolated and gives away a penalty to Welsh. Kicked to touch. Maul after the resulting Lineout and Quins win yet another penalty. Scrum taken!  Some inaccurate and scrappy play follows and we give a kickable pen away. 14-3 Quins. Welsh on the scoreboard with Gordon Ross kicking. I have a feeling that Quins need to beware of being too cavalier.

Into the 2nd quarter and it's a scrum to Quins in midfield. Another penalty given away by us!! Kicked to touch. Welsh knock on at the ruck, scrum Quins. Some great pressure and offloading by Quins, with Big Mo powering through. Offloads galore, Welsh are too narrow and Ugo is in space on the other side to score. Converted and it's 21-3 to Quins with 14 mins left in this half. Penalty to Welsh after we infringe at the ruck. Good play by Welsh and they a chip through which didn't quite work! A 22-drop out follows, the ball is returned and we knock on. Scrum Welsh. Ball shipped out but bundled into touch. Loooong passes being thrown around. Welsh isolated and penalty to Quins. Kicked to touch on the 22. Bonus point try before half time? It is very congested in midfield and 4 players tackle JTH!! So there are holes to be exploited everywhere. Quins lineout. Possession is turned over at the ruck to welsh and kicked up field but mike brown clears well. More pressure by Welsh and Ugo has to make the clearance. Another kickable pen to welsh but kicked to touch. Is the dragon waking up? After that line out I don't think so!  Another penalty to Quins is kicked to touch. Line out will probably be that last action of this half. A little pressure but a Welsh attack peters out when number 11 fumbles and the first half draws to a close. HT: Quins 21-3 London Welsh. Not a bad 1st half but Quins need to tighten up discipline and exploit the space on the wing channel, as Welsh are very narrow in defence.

2nd Half:
Good early pressure and Quins win a penalty, which was taken quickly and cynically tackled too early. The yellow card comes out for the Welsh tight head. Quins take the scrum 7 metres out and Welsh collapse. We are knocking on the door again but good defence on the line by Welsh keeps us out. GREAT scrum by Quins! We are throwing the ball around well. Olly Kohn comes off for Charlie Matthews after 7 mins. Our scrum collapses and JJ gives away a pen which is kicked to touch and Welsh win the line out and try a rolling maul but it is ferociously defended by Quins. A scrum to Quins, which duly collapses, and the penalty won, is kicked to touch. Come on Quins! Strike now!!  They must have heard because less than a minute later, after some excellent play George Robson scores the bonus point try, which is duly converted. 28-3 to Quins with 26 mins left on the clock. This time last week we were 40-13 down!! Gray and Dixon off for Buchanan and Care. Oooh forward pass to Tom Williams!!! He was through!!  Scrum Welsh. What a tackle by Danny Care!!! Great work and Quins get the Penalty, which is kicked to touch, and Gladstone Quin catches it much to the delight of our row! A little to-ing and fro-ing and NEv surprisingly slices a clearance!

A dreadful tackle on Mike Brown!! Waved away by the ref. George Lowe scores, NEv converts for 35-3 with 16mins to go. Ben Botica comes on for Nick Evans. Two props soon follow. JJ and Joe Marler replaced by Marfo and Sinkler.  It’s all or nothing time as Welsh try a cross-field kick that goes into touch.  Even though they are giving away penalties by the dozen Welsh are trying to play but don’t seem to be a cohesive unit. They aren’t sticking it up the jumper or playing 10-man rugby but something is wrong and it could be a very long season for them at the wrong end if they keep playing like this! JTH comes off after wholesale Welsh changes. Matt Hopper takes his place. Lovely run by Care but Williams couldn't quite take the pass. Welsh look very tired now after all that running around, making plenty of unforced errors and mistimed tackles as Ugo Monye is taken out in the air. Arscott is the culprit again. The fans around me are incensed! Mr. Arscott is on the floor ‘injured’ (buying time hoping the Ref forgets) Nick Easter comes over to have a 'chat' with touch judge and Quins favourite JP Doyle. Mr. Arscott sees yellow!  Rolling maul from line out and the ball comes out to Ben Botica who dives over for a fine debut try but unfortunately misses the conversion after I’d been waxing lyrical about his kicking skills to the fans around me…Me and my big mouth!!!

40-3 Quins with 2 mins left and that’s how it stayed. 12550 is the attendance figure. Not bad for a Friday night! Nick Evans named man of the match. A convincing win by Quins who won it at a canter despite making their fair share of errors against, to be honest, with all their spirited but error strewn play, a not very convincing London Welsh side who were lucky to have 3 points on the scoreboard. Mediocre at best. As I mentioned earlier. It could be a VERY long season for them. I wish them well.