It effectively mattered not a jot that Harlequins had scoredthe first try within 75 seconds of the kick-off.  An excellent chip and gather and along pass left to George Lowe put the winger in for a fine try. Nick Evans missed with the conversion attempt and thereafter Clegg tookover the kicking duties.

Two further excellent tries from Nick Easter and Danny Care counted for almost nothing as Harlequins’ defence mostly went missing.   For the first few minutes as Harlequins built a lead of 8 – 0 and hope sprang eternal in the breasts of the Quins’ faithful, Cardiff were not in the game, but they soon set about rectifying that.  An attacking lineout in the Quins’ twenty-two allowed the Blues powerful pack to catch and drive almost to the try-line and when the ball was moved out of the ruck to the right wing there was Gareth Thomas to cross unopposed from three metres.  Blair converted.

Encouraged by their response Cardiff began to attack with every opportunity and as the first quarter ended a sweeping backs move sliced through the Harlequins’ defence for Blair to score on the left and add the conversion, giving Blues a lead that they never lost.

Harlequins struck back as a fine break from Brooker took play deep into Blues territory. Care’s pass put Easter in for Quins’ second try but Clegg failed to add the conversion. In reply the Blues simply broke through what appeared to be a non-existent Quins’ defence providing Sweeney with the simplest of tries and Blair with yet another conversion.  A yellow card for Easter did nothing to help the Quins’ cause and almost immediately Blues scored again through Xavier Rush and with the conversion stretched the lead to 13 – 28.

Despite being reduced to fourteen men Harlequins continued to attack and  from a lineout fifteen metres from the Blues line Care, in a repeat of  one he scored last year against Saracens,  took the ball tapped down from the lineout and ran straight through the line to score.  Clegg added the conversion with thelast kick of the half to cut the lead to 20 –25.

The second half descended deeper into mediocrity so far as Harlequins were concerned.  First Roberts was allowed to run straight through the defensive line from 35 metres to score and later he added a second as Cardiff broke down the right wing,evaded a couple of poor attempts at tackles and the simplest of passes put Roberts clear to score.  Blair converted and with two penalties in addition Blues added 20 unanswered points in the second half. 

Quins did little in the second half that could be said to be good save for one attack started by David Strettle, carried on by George Lowe with Turner-Hall in support. Unfortunately they were stopped five metres short of the line and a penalty allowed the threat to be extinguished.

After the game a depressed and unhappy John Kingston restrained himself with difficulty, saying "Some of our attacking play was very good but, for whatever reason, we chose not to defend and if you're not prepared to defend properly, you get found out. Some of the things that happened out there were  attitudinal (sic), and that isn't right.

If you do not front up against good teams such as Blues you will get punished, and we were. They were on the front foot, we were on the back foot and we did not make them work hard enough."

Kingston hopes his players can now react to the defeat in the right way. He said: "This has been a hard season for a number of reasons, and we are now facing a crossroads of where we go from here in the remainder of our season. If we had to get turned over, this was the game for it to happen.

"Physically we were not at the races. If it looked as if we were not up for it, nothing could be further from the truth. We'd lost some games and wanted to turn things around in this game, saw it as a chance to bounce back. So I am very disappointed with our performance. Defence is 50% of any game, and ours was not good enough."

Kingston found a few positives in defeat, saying: "Jordan Turner-Hall returned from four months out injured and played a good hour. Our scrum was good, but we didn't get many breaks from referee George Clancy in that department.”

"However, shipping six tries at home is not good enough.

Harlequins: N Evans; D Strettle, G Tiesi (J Drauniniu71), J Turner-Hall (N Mordt 63), G Lowe; R Clegg, D Care (K Dickson 63); CJones (A Croall 63), C Brooker, J Andress (J Johnston 67), J Percival, LStevenson, C Robshaw, W Skinner (capt, N McMillan 67), N Easter.

Cardiff Blues: B Blair; G Thomas, C Laulala (T Shanklin73), J Roberts, T James; C Sweeney (D Flanagan 73), R Rees (G Cooper 65); GJenkins (capt), G Williams (R Thomas 65), T Filise (G Powell 67), B Davies, DJones (P Tito 65), A Powell, M Williams (B White 73), X Rush.

Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)

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