Leeds wheel out their big guns against Quins

By Worried of Whitton
November 26 2004

Round 11 in the 2004/2005 Zurich Premiership Season, NEC Harlequins take on Leeds Tykes at the Stoop at 15.00. The half way point has been reached just three months after the season kicked off on that sweltering September afternoon, yet the season still has another six months to run.

Little did we realise when the season kicked off, that it would prove so frustrating for Harlequins. Certainly we would not have expected to be sat on the bottom for most of the season and find ourselves in 11^th place equal on points with Northampton, and just one league point above bottom placed Worcester. After they beat us at the Stoop, Northampton were flying and were a lot of peoples choice for potential Premiership Champions, oh how their fortunes have crashed. 

After last weeks “ugly” win over Sale it seemed likely that Quins had started to pull away from the very bottom of the Premiership, but we were all surprised by the Worcester win away at Franklins Gardens, denying Northampton any points. Whilst it enabled Quins to catch up with Northampton, Worcester were also able to maintain their grip on our shirt tails. This makes Sundays game all the more crucial for Quins to win to consolidate and continue their progress upwards. Similarities may be drawn between Harlequins and Northampton, who both share 14 points, 2 wins and 8 losses, but that is where the similarities end, both teams have arrived at this position from opposite directions.  Quins are certainly on the up, after a poor start and some very close games that could have gone either way. In contrast Northampton, started well but then lost eight Premiership games in succession, and have yet to stop their slide. They are away to Newcastle this Sunday and have a double helping of Toulouse in the Heineken Cup over the following two weeks. Apart from Saints, there are some other very interesting matches this weekend involving clubs in the bottom half of the table that all Quins fans will be watching the results very carefully. Worcester are at home to Wasps on Friday night, while Leicester host Saracens on Saturday, so the results of both these matches will be known before we kick off. One has to predict home wins for both these matches, and at Kingston Park.

So on to our match, like us Leeds too will be looking for a win to stay out of the danger zone, and maintain a mid table position. Leeds, themselves have a more superior record over Quins in the previous 6 meetings of the two clubs. Quins have won twice whilst Leeds have won four times, which includes their last two appearances at the Stoop. They won this match last year 9-16 when it was played on the same weekend. Quins biggest ever win against Leeds was 40-16 on that memorable Friday night, May 3^rd 2002.  Leeds supporters have targeted this to be must win game for themselves. After being knocked out of the Parker Pen Cup Competition, by the narrowest of margins Leeds come into this match after loosing their last two Premiership matches at Newcastle and, last week at home to Bath (28-30), in a game which by all accounts they should have won. Quins in contrast have won their last two matches!

Reading through the comments on the Leeds Tykes message board, their main concern is their complacency and lack of concentration by not playing for the full 80 minutes, and sitting on their lead for the last quarter of the game. Certainly an area Quins in their current form will exploit.” I don't think we have produced our best yet....we make too many errors and, while we don't lose by much, we have not been able to kill a game off even with 10 minutes to go.”... "Tykes are vulnerable in the final 10 minutes”…. “Recognising that Quins are getting their game together, at last....we need to step up a gear. We certainly have some good players and an emerging spirit”.  Leeds have recruited well since last year and are ambitiously working to improve their Premiership status. Amongst their recruits were of course ex Quins centre Chris Bell, the mercurial Iain Balshaw, and the man with the sure foot, Tim Stimpson.   

With Leeds being the home of the “UK Armoury” the Tykes have been able to wheel out most of their big guns for this match, with the return of Balshaw and Regan, with Christophers on the bench. Their most potent weapon is of course Stimpson. Quins will need to be wary of giving away too many penalties, within range of the posts, and for Stimpson that can easily mean up to 50 metres! Any indiscipline that is penalised will have his boot clicking the score board along like a metronome.  Balshaw makes his return on the wing, after recovering from a bruised hip, having missed five games through injury this season. His pace therefore may be a little lacking, and it will be interesting to see him up against Keogh.

At number 10 another new recruit Gareth Wright, is composed and solid in defence, and he seems to have settled in well.

It is assumed that Albanese will be away with the Argentina, whilst Gordon Ross will join the Leeds squad after Scotland’s game against South Africa on Saturday. Bell was a much respected centre and has been on the score sheet a couple of times, this season, he will certainly be looking to repeat this at the Stoop, pairing up with the hard hitting Andre Snyman they could prove to be.

The Leeds pack is fortified with the recent addition of Rayno Gerber. Nicknamed “The Rhino” his 19 stone frame will ensure the Tykes pack will not be a push over, and with Regan returning as Hooker alongside Shelley the Leeds scrum should be very solid. 

Quins have the luxury of naming an unchanged squad of 22 for the third week running, and in fact the squad has changed very little since mid October. Evans appears to be happy that he has the balance right.  It will be interesting to see how this squad changes when Greenwood returns from International duty, but with three weeks of European and domestic Cup games, Evans will have the ability to fine tune the line up. The Deane James partnership does seem to have clicked together and Keogh and Harder are superb wingers. I think many would have expected Maling and Cronje to make their starting debuts, But Cronje is obviously still recovering from injury and Maling remains part of the formidable line up on the bench. I expect many of the replacements will put in an appearance during the second half.

For Harlequins their revival continued last week at Edgerley Park, Sale. At the end of the season I believe we will look back at the third week in November as being the turning point of our season with the two wins and gaining planning permission for the new West Stand.  A hard fought, 13-19 win may have brought beaming smiles to the travelling supporters braving the cold, but Mark Evans was not at all satisfied with their performance, “We didn’t play particularly well and it was a very disjointed game with a high penalty count. We have played a lot better than this and lost. It is never satisfying and I don t feel particularly buoyant about it.” Answering his doubters’ fly half Jeremy Staunton put in a flawless performance to steer Quins to victory. For most of the match Quins seemed to make life unnecessarily difficult for themselves and found numerous ways to annoy the referee, with both Vos and Staunton sent to the sin bin for persistent infringements.  Keogh made amends for his faux pas the previous week and scored Quins only try. In his match report, Keith Jenner, stated that the two half backs played very well, and considering the criticism they’ve taken, have made great improvements over the last few games. The pack looked good and had the better of the mauls. Malling, who come on as a substitute also put in a fine performance. Individually the players did well but the team effort was inadequate as in certain areas they did not click  

As Scotty mentioned this week “One of our concerns over the last few weeks has been the number of penalties that we have conceded. We realise that by contesting the tackle area that you are always liable to give away penalties, as it is a very fine line between being legal and not.  Last season we had one of the lowest penalty counts in the Zurich Premiership and we have not changed our style or technique this season. There were a few contentious decisions in amongst the 18 penalties, but in truth there were also a number of areas that we need to improve upon to avoid being penalised. We need to reduce the number of penalties awarded against us as it is giving our opposition a huge amount of territory and allowing them to build pressure on us, when we should be doing the same to them.”

Both Evans and Scotty have been cautions about the outcome of this weeks match, and are not seeing a home win as a fore gone conclusion.  When announcing the squad Evans said “As pleasing as it has been to get back-to-back victories under our belt, we still have a lot of work to do to get ourselves away from the wrong end of the Zurich Premiership table,” said Mark Evans, NEC Harlequins Chief Executive. “Another win on Sunday will pull us closer to those teams sitting in seventh, eighth and ninth place, and put us in with a good opportunity of climbing the ladder further when the league campaign resumes at the end of next month. However, we can expect to feel a backlash from Leeds as they will be seething at letting victory slip through their fingers in injury time at home to Bath last Friday. They have already picked up victories at London Irish and Saracens this season, and will be determined to make it a hat-trick of wins over the London clubs on Sunday.”

Scotty noted that  “it should be remembered that we have lost our last two home games to them!”

He concluded his “Speaks” this week by saying;  ”We do not play many games at the Stoop on Sunday, but after our last home game against Saracens I would hope that we will see (and hear) a big home crowd giving the team some vociferous support in what is sure to be a very difficult game.”      With few travelling Leeds supporters expected, The Stoop crowd, on song, will make the difference.
 

Prediction:  Quins to make it three wins in a row.

NEC Harlequins:
15. Tom Williams, 14.George Harder, 13. Daffyd James 12. Mel Deane 11. Simon Keogh, 10. Jeremy Staunton, 9. Steve So’oialo, 1. Mike Worsley, 2. Tani Fuga, 3. Ceri Jones, 4.Roy Winters, 5. Simon Miall, 6. Nick Easter,  7. Andre Vos (c), 8, Tony Diprose
Replacements:  
16. James Hayter, 17. Jon Dawson, 18. Simon Maling, 19. Luke Sherriff, 20. Andy Dunne, 21. Ugo Monye, 22. Gavin Duffy 

Leeds Tykes : 15.Tim Stimpson, 14.Iain Balshaw, 13. Chris Bell, 12. Andre Snyman,11. David Rees, 10.Gareth Wright,9. Alan Dickens, 1.Mike Shelley,2. Mark Regan,3. Rayno Gerber, 4Scott Morgan, 5.Tom Palmer (c), 6.Pierre Uys , 7.Dan Hyde 8. Colm Rigney
Replacements:  16 . Matt Holt , 17.Rob Rawlinson ,18.Chris Murphy 19Jon Dunbar, 20.Mark McMillan, 21.Phil Christophers ,22.Tom Biggs/Gordon Ross

Referee: Roy Maybank
Touch judges: Brian Campsall, Lloyd Jackson
Assessor: Clive Leeke