Prof’s Positives Week 5: Newcastle Falcons

By The Prof
October 18 2003

Another week another win for the first team, and against a good team who had just scored a hatful of points against last season’s table toppers – Gloucester (our visitors this coming week).

It was a scrappy encounter, the Newcastle side were bordering on being offside for most of the game, a reason why Burke was awarded so many kicks at goal.
They were obviously worried about the speed we have in the back three especially in Monye and Duffy. They came up offside preventing our halfbacks getting the ball out to the centres with any space available. It made for a disappointing performance but it goes to show how worried the opposition are about our attacking backs – it’s been a while since that can have been said for Harlequins.

The set pieces weren’t great, the lineouts were disrupted on a number of occasions but when you think of the quality of second rows we were up against it is no surprise. The scrum also started off being wheeled a lot, this was another place where Newcastle were3 on the verge of illegality. They were wheeling before the ball came in and continued to do so until they were penalised for their tight head pulling. After that Quins did well in the scrum.

Vos, in my opinion, had one of his best games for us, he was tackling and disrupting opposition ball all over the pitch, it was his fellow South African, Mark Andrews, who grabbed all the headlines for a stupid knee drop onto the head of Pat Sanderson – he really should know better and he rightly deserved his red card. Well done to the referee for issuing it. We will see which type of South African play is to the fore on Saturday when they take on England in the World Cup.

In last weekend’s England game England beat Georgia 84-6, the one sided score line was inevitable really but the men from the Caucasus played their hearts out and should be proud of their hard but fair performance. They are one of the only sides that have managed to stop England from using their rolling maul as an attacking option.

From the Quins point of view there were a few plus points from this match Shaggy and Jase both played, this means Jase now has more international caps than Sella – 112 in total (107 England, 5 Lions). Will also scored two tries one in the right corner and the other to the left of the posts. And finally Will still has all his vitals after being tackled in the tackle by the Georgian number eight as he scored his second try – the moment where he thrust his hand inside his shorts, rummaged around a bit, counted what was there showed the result – two fingers and then gave the thumbs up – priceless and I am sure Caro is happy too!

There was no second team or U21 game this week and unfortunately the U19s lost 17-34 to Leicester.

On the injury front there were a few picked up against Ireland but Rudzki and Bell will be back soon.

On the amateur side of things the Wanderers won 34-7 in a game that was sadly cut short because of a clash of heads in the opposition.

The ladies won 7-25 against Rosslyn Park and scored five tries into the bargain.

This weekend we have a great day out at The Stoop with England v South Africa and then Quins v Gloucester – come on England, come on you Quins!