Prof’s Positives Week 34: Gloucester

By The Prof
May 2 2003

So, an away trip to the league leaders, Powergen Cup winners and, according to the European Club Rankings, the finest team in Europe, I am of course talking about Gloucester

I doubt if any but the most optimistic Quins fan expected much, but at least our second team had gone there a little while ago and been the only side at any level to win away at Kingsholm this season. The more pessimistic said that we would be outclassed, that we were not good enough to play the best in Europe and that it would be worse than last season (Tofty gets headbutted, Glaws down to 14 men after a red card, we lose very badly – sorry for reminding you all).

Well at least it wasn’t as bad as last season. Admittedly we did lose by eighteen points and by four tries to one, but we did make chances. In fact we came very close to scoring another three tries.

Satala did a dinky little chip over the defence and as he went to run through to touch down he was held back, Lander (for the referee was he) saw the infringement and Quins were awarded a penalty – should it have been a binning offence or even a penalty try, well yes, according to the passionate but petite Quins crowd who were probably closer to the incident than Lander, but the penalty try was not given so the lads had to play on without the extra points.

Then Gollings burst through ready to sprint under the posts and score but the whistle was blown and Quins were awarded a penalty. Apparently there had been a forward pass, whether or not the decision was correct I cannot say, I was at the opposite end of the pitch.

Finally Winters came off a scrum, ball in hand and ran up the blind side again about to score as the whistle went for someone being held into the scrum and thus being obstructed. Again it was the other end of the ground so I cannot say whether it was a good decision or not.

But at least we got ourselves into these positions and we came close a number of times but Gloucester’s defence was very good and their defensive touch kicking was excellent.

Getting back to our performance there were a few individual errors which cost us, the odd dodgy pass here, a missed tackle there but they should not be mentioned in a biased and blatantly positive column like this.

The scrum performed well again in the tight with the top two in our man of the match poll coming from it and both being exceptional. Ace and Tani played their socks off. Both were adventurous with ball in hand, the break Tani made up the left wing was scintillating and shows how we might not miss Woody as much as people are suggesting. Ace stayed on the pitch for the whole time and put in some bone crunching tackles.

Fulton’s excellent pass from the base of the scrum was again on display but sadly it is the last time we will see it before he returns to New Zealand because he injured his wrist and will not play in Quins colours again. This is a great shame as he really adds something to the team.

In fact the team suffered a huge number of injuries, all of the substitutes were used, rarely, if ever, can Evs have been forced to pull off so many players in one game (apart from the friendlies). Mel Deane was the most worrying at the time, he and Greenwood went in for a double tackle, it looked like there was a clash of heads and Mel went down like a sack of spanners, and he didn’t get up, in fact he didn’t move, the physios ran on, picked him up and he was replaced by Satala.

When Shaggy was pulled off in the second half Sherriff came on to take up his old University position on centre, but looking at the way he played his mindset is more that of a back row forward even though his hairstyle screams back!

So we lost but we were not outclassed, Gloucester proved themselves to be a very good side indeed. As has been written elsewhere Kingsholm (aka Castle Grim) was quite an experience (for some reason I had never been before), the locals were for the most part friendly, the banter was bouncing around well and we all vowed to see each other again next season.

The Quinssa coach trip was another great success with a raffle, a singsong, another chance to watch the Quins v Leeds game from last season (Ace’s tackle comes after 27 minutes you know!). Why some people have suggested that running coaches to away games will never be viable and that they are not necessary I’ll never understand. This one was fun, it got us to a pub for lunch that provided portions big enough to fill even the most capacious of bellies and we even got to learn what Tiramisu means (it means ‘Pick me up’). Many thanks to Quinssa and especially Will (aka SleepyHollow) for organising it.

Elsewhere in the club it wasn’t the best set of results, the U21s lost to their Gloucester opposition at home. A few regulars were missing through illness (Tom Williams and Henry Barratt) but the side put up a good show nevertheless, scores came from Rob Outen, Adrian Jarvis and Ugo Monye. Gloucester had gone well ahead early on but Quins never gave up and closed the gap to give a final score of 23-32.

On the injury front, the ones picked up in Gloucester were not as bad as they first appeared apart from Billy Fulton’s. They will all be available for selection as will props Bruce Starr and Laurent Gomez, both of whom have overcome pretty serious injuries to find themselves on the bench for the game against Northampton, we welcome them both back. Ace will be sitting this one out for picking up another three yellow cards and Jase will be rested so he can be fighting fit for the Zurich Wildcard Playoffs.

This Friday sees our last home game in the league this season, let’s get down there and cheer the lads on to victory. Come on you Quinssa!