Prof’s Positives Week 19: Bristol Shoguns (h)

By The Prof
January 9 2003

So it was a new year, we had just had a disappointing trip down to Bath but we were at home again. Could we keep up our winning run? Up to this point we had won six on the trot at home in domestic competition (five in the Premiership and Leeds in the Cup).

The answer, as we all know now, is yes indeed we could. There were a number of positives to come out of this game. Let’s start up front, the pack dominated their opposition in the set piece and all of them had good games. We must remember that the Bristol pack were reported to have destroyed the Sale pack the previous week and we were without the very unlucky Laurent Gomez (who had broken a bone in his leg in training), Pat Sanderson (who injured a shoulder the previous week), Keith Wood (who still had a range of injuries), Roy Winters (who has been out with a snapped Achilles since the start of the season) and Bruce Starr (the prop who has performed so well when given his chance to date). So into the front row in place of Gomez came Jon Dawson who is now back to full fitness after injury and surgery earlier in the season - he was up against ex-second row Sheridan who ,if stories in the press are reliable, is a mixture between Popeye and Samson!

Prop is a position that people who haven’t played it believe is just for one of the short fat boys to fill, and as long as they are quite strong they can pull it off; but in reality it is a highly technical position where if you get it wrong can lead to serious injury or worse a scrum lost against the head! Daws showed him what it was like to prop against a specialist. Sheridan was destroyed up front, Tani and Jase completed a front row that performed well throughout.

The top moment with Daws was the point when he unexpectedly got the ball from Duncombe, you could see his mind working, weighing up his options: should I nip round the back of the ruck and sprint up the wing; perhaps a little chip and chase; a grubber, no; a cross-field kick to Jase on the other wing; perhaps a sly reverse pass; mayhap a big miss pass to the wing; nope I'll just stick my head down and charge at them - GOOD LAD!

Daws also had a little run in with Pichot, the Argentine was on the wrong side after a tackle and was ‘encouraged to roll away’ by some rucking, he did so but then ran after Jon Dawson whinging before running after the referee and whinging at him, it really made me giggle.

The Quins pack were all over their opposition in the tight even before Archer was sent off for a dangerous high tackle on Jim Evans (the replacement for Davison) in the 71st minute. We won a couple of scrums went against the head and at times the Bristol pack seemed to be on roller skates. Fuga was used well in the lose to run at Contepomi (for the 70 minutes the Argentine wasn’t in the sin bin) and he seems to have recovered his form after a recent dip.

The second row had a great game too, obviously Codling’s line out play was awesome – I think we are becoming complacent and we expect Alex to perform to this standard every game but we should never forget how important he is to our game (much of the thanks should go to the trio who work so hard on line outs – JK, Codling himself and Roy Winters). Davison too had a good game, he was all over the pitch, often being the first there to stop quick opposition throws and putting in a number of big tackles as did Codders.

The back row of Ace, Vos and Dippy did well all game. Ace was one of the reasons we did so much better at the break down this week, whether or not it was his rucking that lead to Job Jewell’s dead leg we may never know!

Dippy had his usual type of game where he showed great footballing skills, catching balls looking straight into the sun, awesome at the back of the line out, great handling in open play, great at his judoesque tackle and turn and even a competent kick to touch and all of this on only one leg – let’s hope the next couple of weeks off will allow him to get back to full fitness. Vos was again very busy, a lot of his work goes unnoticed, in much the same way as Wilson’s or Winters’, but he also showed up in the line a number of times taking three or four men to stop him each time. I am also not too sure that Greenwood scored the try towards the end of the game – Vos came in like a bullet from nowhere and dived in as Will went for the ball. Both men stood up looking daggers at each other before they both grinned at the score.

Vos certainly looks hungry for success. In fact Vos got the Orange Opta NEC Harlequins Player of the Month for December 2002 with the following figures: 2 appearances, 19 tackles, 3 missed tackles, 86% tackle success, 10 ball carries, 41 metres, 2 defenders beaten, 3 offloads and 1 lineout steal – not bad for a chap who has only just been with the club for two months.

The half-backs, Duncombe and Burkey, performed well with the high quality ball that were provided by the forwards. Duncombe looked sharp and had a couple of sniping runs and Burke had a good day both with the boot (including a couple of monster kicks from the half way line – perhaps he’s practicing them for the Leicester game) and with the ball in hand, he was a key link between Greenwood and Gollings when he scored his try.

Greenwood scored the other Quins try after he put a speculative grubber kick through behind the luckless ex-Quin Daniel, the Bristol man won the race to the line but he was outdone by the bounce of the ball and Vos and Greenwood leapt on the mistake and Will was credited with the score.

Greenwood’s centre partner, Bell, had a good game too making powerful weaving runs at his opposition. He got a bang in the face for all his hard work and had to go off to receive stitches to a cut under his left eye. He certainly seems to be back on form after a lay off through injury and operation.

Another person having returned from injury recently was Dan Luger who looked pretty much back to his best, he came off his wing at angles and pace and it always took a few defenders to get him down – in the process Luger made extra yards. It was good to see him back and obviously enjoying it, he was interacting with the crowd during the game and saluted both East and West Stands at the end.

Jewell started on the other wing but was pulled off by the management after receiving a knock to his leg and replaced by Gollings who had a lively game scoring one try and always looking to get into the action.

At the back Nathan Williams performed well again running more from the back and linking well with Luger on the wing a number of times.

Quins should probably have done better in the first half with the amount of possession that the forwards were providing but we can’t have everything can we? The team were much more active and aggressive at the breakdown this week and they coupled this with giving very few penalties away.

Finally another positive must have been the decision of Evs to get rid of Brendan Daniel, he had a complete pig of a game and showed his anger with a tantrum or two. Bless!

Elsewhere in the club the U21s had a very disappointing time after their characterful win over Bath the previous week with a 52-12 loss to their Bristol opposition.

The Amateurs’ match was postponed after their opposition, London French, were caught fielding unregistered players.

The Ladies had no game again this week.

The seconds had a home game against Northampton Wanderers (a mixed Northampton and Bedford team) on Monday night, a strong team was put out that included Nick Greenstock’s first game back after his injury against Wasps. Stockers was named in the centre alongside Big Bill Satala and with a back three of Matty Moore and Ugo Monye on the wings and Ben Gollings at full back.

Greenstock had a good all round game and seemed to be back to fitness and Satala scored a couple of tries – in both he used his strength to run through tackles and drag himself to the line, he certainly is a difficult chap to stop when going forward.

Gollings had a good evening at fullback , counter attacking, and kicking well. Moore made a couple of his trademark jinking runs but he didn’t make the impact we would have hoped, one fine break led to him being in a one on one with Northampton fullback (and ex-Quin) Ryan O’Neil, sadly Moore seemed to lose traction and he ran straight into his opposite number. The young England 7s player Ugo Monye had a quiet game on the other wing, he tackled well but didn’t seem to get the ball passed to him. Monye was pulled off and replaced with another up and coming star Henry Barratt who showed blistering pace in one chase down the left wing.

The fly-half spot was shared between Seb FitzGerald and Adrian Jarvis, both had good games with Seb showing his kicking skills and Jarvis showing great hands and speed. The scrum half position was also shared, Powell took the first half and Bemand the second and both enjoyed a lot of good possession behind a powerful scrum.

The whole back row performed well and looked hungry for the ball, Mockford had half a game as replacement for Sherriff and he looked to be doing well after returning from recent injury.

Miall (the captain) had a storming game alongside Rudzki in the second row, he made a number of big tackles around the pitch and lead the side well.

The front row had a storming game in the tight with the youngster Sam Walton putting in a huge performance at prop, he destroyed his opposite number and his workrate round the fringes at breakdowns was very high. Again Hayter impressed at hooker, he showed good hands and pace around the park.

The firsts and seconds they have racked up a string of 10 games unbeaten at home in domestic competitions with just one draw among them (the 2nds v Wasps). The last loss to an English team at The Stoop was against Leeds on the 14th September 2002.

There is one final person who deserves to be congratulated – Farmer Martin, the groundsman, we have seen terrible pitches at other rugby grounds but The Stoop pitch has held up very well and it still looked excellent after the second game in three days despite the heavy rain and frost.

Well that was a huge list of positives and I think there is still a lot to come from the various Quins teams. Here’s to a successful 2003 for the club.