Preview: Pertemps Bees (h)

By Worried of Whitton
January 1 2006

The second half of the season starts this weekend when Harlequins continue their National Division One campaign, with a home match against Pertemps Bees, (Birmingham and Solihull RFC) at The Stoop Twickenham. Kick off is at 15.00 .

Pertemps Bees were Harlequins' first opponents when the season kicked off in September and many will recall that balmy early autumn day in leafy Solihull, with Quins eventually running out winners by 35 points to 9, and picking up a full five points. Since that day Harlequins have continue their winning ways in league and cup and are now well into the longest run of wins in the clubs history,  even if the games played to date haven t been all plain sailing. This was exemplified by last week's performance against London Welsh.  Essentially the game had been won by half time with five first half tries, but I don t think anyone expected the nature of the fight back by London Welsh, and all credit to them. The Stoop witnessed the same determined “exiles “squad that so nearly had taken the scalp of the Pirates in their previous match. Quins were full of festive greetings and season cheer as the game developed in parts into a pantomime during the second half, especially after the mass substitution which saw Vos and Mehrtens leave the field and any game plan with it. After their departure Quins simply gifted The Welsh a try scoring bonus point, and if the accuracy of the conversions had been better, an even close result may have been recorded. Albeit Quins did fight back with two further tries of their own, through Williams and Duffy giving an afternoon’s entertainment to the holiday crowd. As can be seen from the league table, London Welsh have picked up a significant number of bonus points this season which illustrates how close their losses have been.

 

 

Pertemps Bees have had not a particularly good season to date, as their lowly league position indicates. They appears to have put in a number of indifferent performances especially over the past few weeks, which promoted comments on their website match report  against Doncaster of   “Embarrassing - the one word to describe the Bees' performance today. It was a case of cannots, and cannot be arseds, in a game in which the scoreline heavily flattered Bees” and “This was the worst Bees' performance I have seen this year”. The previous week a draw with Newbury resulted in one Bees supporter sating the performance was “shocking”.  Last weekend were soundly beaten 30-8   by a rejuvenated Nottingham side, playing in appalling weather conditions, that has an army of volunteers sweeping the pitch both before the start of the match and again at half time, as Nottingham simply swept aside their opponents!

So as we move into the second half of the season with promotion the focus for the squad over the next four months. Harlequins have played and beaten everyone in he league to date and will have learnt the strengths and weakness of their opponents. On paper the next few months should be easy as nine of the remaining thirteen games are at home at “Fortress Stoop”; however the team know they cannot afford to be complacent in their goal. There is a more comfortable buffer of nine points between the second and third placed sides but one slip up would see them slide back towards them towards Pirates and Bedford. Vos is reported this week as saying “Winning every week is not the be all and end all for us as long as we finish top, but it is possible for us to win the lot,…. We just want to maintain our winning habit”.

I think we all expect another win this week, the concern may be the manner, in which it is attained, and there is some room for improvement and focus, but my real concern is for the pitch. Despite a “rest” of four weeks there were a number of bare patches at the start of the match last weekend and with the winter weather and the series of matches to be played over the coming weeks it is a case of come back Farmer Chris!

Best wishes for a very Happy New Year and see you in 2006!

 

Come on you Quins!