Sedgley Park Preview (Powergen Trophy)

By Worried of Whitton
November 4 2005

Harlequins on tour venture North one more this week, but this time taking in the sights and sounds of the M6 as Manchester is the destination. Harlequins are away to Sedgley Park in the fifth round of the Powergen Trophy. The match is being played on SUNDAY November 6th kick off at Park Lane is at 3

It appears from the Sedgley Park website that the reasoning for the Sunday fixture is, apparently, to encourage supporters to attend who would not usually be able to do so on a Saturday afternoon. Some bizarre logic at work here and it has served to dissuade many Quins supporters from traveling. With the reduced numbers of traveling supporters, it became uneconomic to run a supporters coach. Those wishing to travel have to make their own arrangements for the tortuous 400 mile round trip, with the thrills of contra flows on the roads and a Sunday service on the railways. However it will be interesting to compare the numbers of the two gates, as Harlequins return to Park Lane the following Saturday for their ND 1 match.

The Powergen National Trophy competition replaces the former Powergen Cup of earlier seasons. This has now changed into a European style competition for the 12 English Premiership Clubs and the “big four?” from Wales. The Powergen National Trophy is a very similar to the old Powergen Cup format but has been severely devalued, as it is exclusively for clubs outside the Premiership. At this stage, round five all the clubs in National Division One enter the competition. Along with the ND 1 Division Title and the Guinness “A” league Title, this is the third, competition that is well within Harlequins ability to win. The final is at that other Twickenham Stadium on April 8^th 2006.

I’m indebted to Dave Morton who has provided a potted history of his club. Sedgley Park or as it was affectionately known in the 1960s and 1970s Sludgley Park, due to its muddy pitches, is situated just two miles North of Manchester’s City Centre, just past Strangeways Prison. The club is a relative new comer as it was founded in 1932. Ironically they have never actually played in Sedgley Park itself. A new clubhouse was built to coincide with their Golden Jubilee season in 1982, which by all accounts was a risky business venture at that time, despite the club doing well and it paid further dividends when the Courage Leagues began in 1987, and Sedgley Park had progressed top North West 2 league, being promoted in 1988 to Division 1 in the Northwest league where they remained for seven years. When the game opened up in the middle nineties, Sedgley Park was ready and promotion was achieved three years in succession; the clubhouse was extended; the two pitches became one, which is now in excellent condition, new floodlights and terracing were also added, together with a newly purchased field, across the road, which provided three much needed pitches.

Further promotion, in 2001, took them into National League Two, and they attained their League One status in 2004, their sixth promotion since 1987. A new stand was constructed in 2002 to seat 320 people and was funded entirely by the club, and there are access facilities for the disabled. The 1st XV pitch has concrete terracing and a one-way perimeter road around it. Together, the stand and terracing provide a total ground capacity in the region of 3,000.

As we are playing the same team two weeks running and that this is a Cup, sorry Trophy game, I thought it pertinent not to review their league performance until next week. However, as our Cornish Spy, CornyQuin reported earlier this week that against the Pirates, Sedgley Park “…were really not very good. Defensively they were all over the place when Pirates ran at them. If, in the upcoming 2 games against SP, Quins don't beat the 53 points that Pirates scored in at least one of them then I'll be very surprised”.

Commenting on Harlequins match in Rotherham, Captain Vos said “It was not our best performance by any means, but we showed a lot of fight and guts. We had to work hard but the defence held up well. Maybe last season we would have lost a match like that, but we have learned how to win again. I think last season we forgot how to do that.” Scotty reported that “The team this weekend will show a number of changes with both George Harder and Will Greenwood returning to the squad after injury”, and when the team was announced on Thursday afternoon, Harlequins had made ten changes to the team that started against Rotherham last weekend. It cannot be said that this is a weak side, it has a very similar appearance to the team that started against Pertemps Bees, in September, but based on the expectation of the ability of the opposition, and their placing in the league, Quins have taken the opportunity of resting a number of players, after the bruising match last week. In the past few weeks the starting line up has begun to stabilise, but despite the changes, it is clear that they expect to win the match. In the back division, Will Greenwood returns “home to the North West as path finder to the team since injuring his shoulder against Doncaster. He partners young Jordan Turner-Hall, fresh from his England U19 camp, in the midfield. The other changes include Tom Williams, George Harder and Ian Vass replacing Gavin Duffy, Ugo Monye and Steve So’oialo respectively. With Turner Hall and Harder up front, Sedgley Park are going to wonder what has hit them! In the pack, Jimmy Richards and Lorne Ward start in the front row in place of Tani Fuga and Ricky Nebbett, while Kevin Burke replaces Jim Evans in the second row.

With Andre Vos amongst the replacements, Tony Diprose returns to captain the side, while Nick Easter switches to blindside flanker. Chris Robshaw replaces Luke Sherriff on the open side. Congratulations go to academy lock forward James Inglis who is on the bench and features in the First XV for the first time.

Quins should come through this match unscathed and win by a substantial margin. It will be interesting to see whether the same team will be selected for the league match next weekend. The two teams have never played against each other so both will have a lot to learn about each other ahead of the their league match on November 12^th.

 

NEC Harlequins:
15. Tom Williams, 14. George Harder, 13. Will Greenwood, 12. Jordan Turner-Hall, 11. Simon Keogh, 10. Andrew Mehrtens, 9. Ian Vass, 1. Ceri Jones, 2. Jimmy Richards, 3. Lorne Ward, 4. Kevin Burke, 5. Simon Miall, 6. Nick Easter, 7. Chris Robshaw, 8. Tony Diprose (c).
Replacements: 16. James Hayter,17. Mike Worsley,18. James Inglis,19. Tom Guest,20. Andre Vos, 21. Mike Brown, 22. Gavin Duffy

Sedgeley Park: expected to be
15. A De Jager,14.J Freeley,13.S. Woof,12.C.Hall, 11.D McGee10.P.Jones, 9.C. Wilkinson, 1.P. Gazzola,2.R. Oxley 3. G Evans,4.T Fourie, 5.E. Lund, 6.R. Senior 7.J Ponton(c), 8. S.Anania
Replacements tba

Match Officials:
Referee: Wayne Barnes
Touch judges: Chris Sharp, Martin Buck