Centransa UEMC Preview - home

By The Prof
December 12 2003

Harlequins will be playing host to Centransa UEMC, the Web Ellis Trophy and a civic reception for Jason Leonard and Will Greenwood. The 3.00pm kick off will be in front of a packed house with almost 9,000 tickets having been sold – who said the World Cup wouldn’t have much effect on rugby gates?

Harlequins make three changes to the team that beat Centransa UEMC last Sunday George Harder returns after a long time out with a knee injury that he picked up the second game of the season against Rotherham to replace Simon Keogh on the wing. Keogh moves into scrum half and Ben Willis drops to the bench. Chris Bell replaces the injured Josh Taumalolo who has a knee and back injury that is expected to keep him out of action for 6-8 weeks. Jim Evans drops to the bench, Roy Winters takes his place in the second row and Ace Tiatia starts at blindside.

Last week’s match didn’t quite go to plan, although we did get the win we needed it wasn’t quite as easy a task as many people expected. The Spanish side were very well organised, their defence was solid and for the most part their set pieces worked well. They had far fewer chances to score than Quins but they made a lot more of them scoring two tries in quick succession in the third quarter of the game.

Team Manager Mike Scott stood by the decision to take a reduced strength side to Valladolid saying “we won, that was the main thing, there would be no point in taking out a full strength side and winning by 60 or 70 points, you only have to look at the return leg against Caerphilly to see that. It was a good opportunity for the likes of Kai Horstmann, Roy Winters, Andy Reay, Scott Bemand, Luke Sherriff and Rob Jewell to get some first team experience and Kai Horstmann certainly took his opportunity well and probably just beat Jim Evans to man of the match on the day.”

The Centransa players Asis and Muñoz both praised Kai Horstmann too naming him as the best Quins player on the day. Asis was happy with the way Centransa played saying “we are happy because we expected to lose by about thirty points so when we were 18-19 behind it was very nice for us, for a few moments we even thought we could win the match”.

A number of the Centransa side have played in England before mainly for Spain in sevens tournaments or for Spain against Gloucester. They are all looking forward to playing against Harlequins at The Stoop, Asis said “It is very important for us to play at one of the most important grounds in England, it is the first time we have played in Europe and to do it in London against the Quins, with the World Cup there and next door to Twickenham it wonderful”.

Mike Scott said “if we don’t concentrate they will cause us problems, last week we played pretty well in the first half and in the last 20 minutes but in the third quarter we turned over too much ball. This week we have not been soul searching but have been working hard at looking after the ball in contact and presenting it well”.

He went on to say “a number of the team changes have been made to ensure players are fit and available for the game against Sale, we have got Cameron Dott on the bench instead of Tani Fuga because we will need him because Ace Tiatia will be playing for the NZ Barbarians at Twickenham on the Saturday.

It seems that the Centransa team will be similar to the one we played against last week, the players to watch out for, well quite a few of them to be honest but Antonio Muñoz picked out the lock Garanchana and the fullback Velasco.

If we win this weekend we will go through to the second round and play against one of the two lucky losers from the first round. The lucky losers are determined by the number of points they have been awarded, you get 2 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. So if one of last week’s losing sides wins this week either of them could be a lucky loser as they will both have two points, then it goes to points difference. So it is impossible to predict where (if we win on Saturday) we will be playing away in January.

Here’s to a good game, although it seems likely the weather will spoil both sides running game, and here’s to repaying some of the hospitality the travelling Quins players, staff and supporters received in Valladolid.

Harlequins:
Gavin Duffy, Rob Jewell, Chris Bell, Andy Reay, George Harder, Andrew Dunne, Simon Keogh, Ceri Jones, James Hayter, Laurent Gomez, Karl Rudzki, Roy Winters, Ace Tiatia, Kai Horstmann, Luke Sherriff (c)
Replacements: Cameron Dott, Jon Dawson, Jim Evans, Bill Davison, Scott Bemand, Mel Deane, Ben Willis

Centransa UEMC (probable):
Caballero, Zarzosa, Serrano, Garachana, Gallopa, Souto, Asís, Mata, Jaime Alonson, Roqué, Lamela, Toché, G. Martínez, Brower, Velazco.
Replacements: Insausti, Paris, Muñoz, R. Turrion, Maeda, Toca