Prof’s Positives Week 2: Rotherham Titans

By The Prof
September 25 2003

The human memory is very selective, the human mind is a fickle thing. The talk after last Saturday’s game was more about how the team hadn’t performed that well, how we need to tighten our game up if we want to do well this season etc.

Just six short months ago (many of them being in the off season) we supporters had been getting excited about the chance of an away win – the first one in the league for two years (the previous one being Rotherham at Clifton Lane). As you will all remember we did it the venue was the Madejski Stadium. It was a game that had everything, a Quins win, away from home, against London Irish, on St Patrick’s weekend, and a Quins win - well when I say it had everything, it had everything except exciting rugby.

Last Saturday the supporters (both travelling and armchair) saw a Quins team go away from home, up north (well north midlands at least) and win, not only did they win but they scored five tries along the way. Four of the tries came in the first half, meaning we had a bonus point with forty minutes to go and four of the five tries came from the wings Monye and Harder. I make that 16 out of 23 tries this season (including pre-seasons) having come from the back three – a statistic that shows how Quins are evolving.

The fact that the supporters (and I presume the management and players) aren’t overly ecstatic is a positive, no longer are we happy to win, we want to win preferably in style but definitely whilst playing well for eighty minutes throughout the team.

But enough of that, let’s look at the game itself, well the fact that we won, away from home, scored five tries, had no one yellow carded and only had one injury which now doesn’t look as bad as first thought are all great positives. The forwards turned over a fair bit of ball, allowing the backs to get their hands on the ball when the opposition defence wasn’t expecting it and when they were not in a good position to defend. The whole team can take the credit for this because every ruck or maul saw Quins forwards and backs getting stuck in. The people who really stood out doing this were the back row of Sanderson, Vos & Diprose, Simon Miall and Ace Tiatia (who won Sky’s man of the match award). The lineout was pretty good and we did well pinching opposition ball. The extra controlled aggression was definitely on display.

Willis showed that he has a great pass which gives Burke the time to show what a quality player he is. For the second week running Burke has varied his game - passing, kicking, chipping the ball through and breaking himself. It was good to see Mel Deane playing again after what looked to be a nasty injury in Newport. Deane’s centre partner was again the 20 year old Andy Reay and again he had a great game, he runs good lines and he is deceptively fast, he’ll be getting a lot of experience from these games and it looks like he has learnt a lot already.

Finally we come to the back three, they look very good together, Ugo’s speed, George’s strength and Gavin’s skills and running lines all compliment each other. The line that Duffy ran before passing the ball back over his left shoulder for Ugo to score was reminiscent of Greenwood at his best. All in all it is a trio who can strike fear into defences throughout the Premiership. Remember that the likes of Taumalolo, Keogh, Moore, Jewell and the youngster Williams are all available to come in as needed.

The substitutes all did well when they came on the front row was replaced by Jones, Fuga and Gomez. Ceri Jones impressed particularly putting in a number of important tackles. It was nice to see Ace - who had shown great hands to take a tricky ball from Harder to score – leaving the pitch only to start signing autographs for children straight away.

Being able to pull the likes of Vos, Burke and Davison off and to replace them with Sherriff, Dunne and Evans again shows the depth of our squad.

The U21s recorded another big win, this time against Rotherham U21s, they won 55-5 and Ugo Monye wasn’t the only Quin to score a hat trick, Chris Cracknell did too, Tries: Parker, Barratt, Chinudu and Williams were the other try scorers.

The U19s played away to Bath and showed great character to come back from letting in two tries at the beginning of each half.

The Ladies won against Plymouth who were one of the two sides who finished above the Ladies last season. The tries came from Knight and Burbidge.

The Amateurs lost in the cup but they were playing a side two divisions above them so there is no shame there.

So Quins ended the weekend in top spot with nine points from their first two games, having beaten the Champions and new boys and scoring eight tries – five from Ugochokwu Monye.

Bring on the Irish!