Prof’s Positives Week 9: Northampton

By The Prof
November 13 2003

So we let our concentration slip and let two late tries in against a side that has more people at the RWC than we did, we had two players sin binned, we didn’t score fifty points and two of the five tries came from the forwards rather than flowing play by the backs and scores by the wings.

The seconds’ game was riddled with handling errors, the Amateurs and Ladies teams both played scrappily.

Could this be one of the worst weeks at Quins in recent years? No, far from it. It was another full house of wins for all the Quins sides.

I doubt if many people expected us to get much out of the game against Northampton – a side who has been playing well, that has some of the best attacking players in the Premiership and who were coming to The Stoop after a good win the week before. The Quins side had more players back from injury and the side was starting to look a bit more like the one that started the season even though Ace Tiatia, George Harder and Simon Miall were all still missing.

The first half was like watching the Quins of old, there were very few mistakes, the right option was taken again and again and what is most important the players looked like they were enjoying it - as Will Greenwood said “it’s supposed to be fun”.

The win came from an excellent platform set up by the forwards, the Northampton scrum was being disrupted every scrum by the front five of Worsley (having his best game for Quins so far), Tani (coming back from a knee injury) and Dawson (who had had an excellent game the week before against Leeds). It was also the best performance by the second row too, not only did they provide the power in the scrums but they pinched and disrupted the lineout on Northampton’s throws.

The back row were simply awsome, they tackled anything wearing Northampton colours (in Dippy’s case one time a tad early earning him an extended half-time rest), turned over ball on the ground and ran great attacking lines, battering into and through the Northampton defence.

The half back pairing of Willis and Burke also played their best match together, burke was standing flat and feeding runners coming at pace from deep – the timing of the passes was great to see. The centres – Deane and Bell – had good games feeding the wings and pulling in defenders.

It was the back three who were mentioned in the press reports most of all, not surprising as they scored three tries between them. Simon Keogh is just one try behind Ugo in the try scoring table in the ZP this season, seeing the two of them in first and second place is wonderful to see. So far in all games the first team back three has scored 22 of the 35 tries so far this season, this is 63%, we can compare this with last season’s 42% (30 out of 71 tries), perhaps the new signings in the backs are working well with Paul Turner’s moves.

So five tries against an in form side a five point win for us and nothing for them, thousands of happy faces in all parts of the ground and a good party in the East Stand Bar where we could celebrate and the Saints fans could drown their sorrows. The gracious nature of the Saints fans in defeat has been noted elsewhere but I think it deserves to be repeated here.


The second team won a messy game in foggy conditions on Tuesday night, the pack performed well – the sight of the Cambridge University loose head’s arm flailing as he tried to bind to Laurent Gomez was hilarious.

Jarvis played well as usual with quick passing and great kicking including a fine crossfield kick to a waiting Kai Horstmann who seemed to collect the ball, fall over the line, realise he hadn’t made it and then relaunch himself over the line to score. Matt Moore’s score was Moore at his best, running around about seven defenders.

Perhaps Quins should have scored more but the conditions lead to an obviously slippery ball so perhaps we should be satisfied with the win that continues the unbeaten start to the season and the fact that the defence held strong.

On the injury front Ace Tiatia and George Harder are recovering and should be playing again soon, it is obviously frustrating for them to have been kept out of the action for so long and Simon Miall is keeping to his rehabilitation plan whilst analysing line out moves by the opposition (both for Quins and for Oxford University) – let’s hope we see him back and in form before the end of the season.

The U21s and U19s both won too with the older side beating Oxford University U21s 41-10 and the U19s beating Exeter Academy 39-3. The U21s side, which was providing a lot of players for the 2nds game on the Tuesday, scored tries through Chris Cracknell, max Evans, Tom Allen (2), Tom Williams and replacement flanker Jack Woolhough with Brendan Leask kicking the goals. As with the first team’s win against Northampton the basis of this win was a fine performance from the front row of Ohmeed Martini, Steve Wood and Reg de Jaeger.

The U19s scored tries through flanker James Sasha; fullback Paul Joyce; wings Marlow Warrington-Mattei and ND Monye and centre Dean Richards with Luke Cousins on hand to kick the extra points. Anthony Allen, Marimba Odundo-Mendez, Mark Lambert and Marlow Warrington-Mattei from the Quins Academy have all been included in the England U19 training squad again - well done to them all. The Academy has two new additions: John Brake (centre/scrum half) and Rory Hamilton-Brown (full back) have signed from Millfield School.

Elsewhere in the club the Ladies won 17-0 away to Avon, this win puts them top of the table. The fact they nilled their opposition is good and means that they have only conceeded 27 points in five games. Tries came from Rachael Bullingham , Pippa Butt and Dani Knight who converted her own try. By all accounts the pack performed well again in the tight regularly pushing the opposition off their own ball.

The Amateurs’ win made it a clean sweep of victories for Quins, they scrappily beat Old Haberdashers 19-15 with tries coming from Webster, Appah and Thompson.

On the England side of things Will Greenwood has now scored as many tries as Guscott so he is now in joint second place behind Rory Underwood and Jase has reached Sella on 111 caps for his country. Greenwood is starting against France and Jase has a chance of being sole highest cap winner if he comes of the bench to replace either Vickery or Woodman.

So all in all a very good week, all the teams won, no players were added to the injured list, the 1st XV are up to second in the table having scored five tries, there was a very successful Greene King/Quins Supporters’ Pub Night, the second team continued their unbeaten run, Academy players are being selected for the national squad and Will and Jase are in the team to play France in the RWC semi-final.

Come on you Quins, Come on England!