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Montpellier Home


By Quins4life
November 10 2015

Well 3 wins out of 4 games to start the Premiership season, who would have predicted that. Before the start of the season I saw this first block of fixtures as a real indicator of where we’ll finish this season and overall I have been impressed generally. Out of the opening games, I’ll be honest, I saw the Sale game as the easiest by far, yet it turned out to be our biggest test of the season so far. Sale came to the Stoop with a game plan to stifle our play by saying if you want to score you are going to have to from your own half. It worked. We did not play well and we lucky in the end to come away with a win. It was game that won't make the highlights reel come May but it could prove crucial to where we end up, as it would have been a disaster to lose to a team at home that I expect will finish below us at the end of the season. 

Anyway lets move on and look forward to the start of our European Challenge Cup campaign. We haven’t played in the group stages of this competition since our great night in Cardiff fours years ago, a game which kicked start the progression of Harlequins in to one of the best sides in England as well as Europe. It is a competition we have a great affinity with having won it three times, the most by any club in Europe. Because of this, I hope we take it seriously enough to progress far in the competition as it would be nice to win some more silverware and also it provides us with another opportunity to qualify for the Champions Cup if our season goes similarly to last year. 

We start our campaign this Thursday night against Montpellier. Thursday night games are a serious pain to everyone and I hope people can still make it down to the Stoop and cheer the lads on! Also spare a thought for any Montpellier fans that may have wanted a nice trip to London and now cannot due to the scheduling. 

Montpellier are in a similar position to Quins this year. After a number of season competing in the Champions Cup and reaching a couple of knockout games, they had a highly disappointing season for their standards last year meaning they ended up in the Challenge Cup and consequently in a group with us. This season they have started the season better and are currently sitting 6th in the Top 14 table, winning 5 out of 8 games including an impressive win VS Clermont. However, last week they were on the wrong end of a hammering at the hands of Toulon, losing 52-8. 

Over the summer they raided South Africa squad to improve their squad as they added the Du Plessis brothers (Bismark and Jannie) as well as Pierre Spies. They also have two ex-Aussie international in the forms of Ben Mowen and Jesse Mogg. The squad also includes a number of other familiar names. They have ex-Gloucester and Fijian captain Akapusi Qera, ex-Racing metro flyer Benjamin Fall, ex-Clermont powerhouse and scrum guru Nicolas Mas and also erratic French flyhald Francois Trinh-Duc. So as you can see clearly they have an incredibly strong squad. However, if they use these players is another question all together. In the past French teams have tended to rotate their squad in the Challenge Cup matches. However due to the added prize of automatic Champions Cup qualification could mean they take the tournament slightly more seriously than in previous years. It will be intriguing to see how they approach the game. 

Team Selections 

It will be interesting to see how O’Shea approaches this match. He’ll know that a win on Thursday night will more than likely mean by the end of round 4, Quins will have at least 14 points due to having the Italian minnows Calvisano in the group, who most English and French teams have got 5 points against both home and away in previous years. Bearing this in mind, I would play a near full strength side against Montpellier but with a few exceptions. Due to Jones, Sloan and Horwill missing the Sale games due to minor niggles or illness, they should be fit and available for Thursday, and therefore I would bring all three of them back in. I would also give Brown and Robshaw a rest during these two Challenge Cup game as both were looking shattered last week and we need them to be firing for Exeter in our next Premiership game. This means Clifford back in, and I would like to see Swiel, but I expect OLH will start. Ross Chisholm said he was available for selection this week again so could potentially be an option too for 15. 

My Quins Team Selection- Marler, Ward, Jones, Horwill, Twomey, Clifford, Wallace, Easter; Care (c), Evans, Visser, Sloan, Lowe, Yarde, Swiel. SUBS- Gray, Lambert, Sinckler, Matthews, J Chisholm, Dickson, Botica, Walker 

I have no idea what team Montpellier will select to face us. Who knows how seriously they will take the competition and therefore they make it impossible to predict their team. I do know that the Du Plessis brothers are now available, but Trinh Duc has been struggling with an injury so may not be fit/risked for the game against us. This was their team last weekend but who knows if this will be relevant this week; 
15Anthony Floch,, 14 Pierre Berard, 13 Andrew Smith, 12 Robert Ebersohn, 11 Julien Malzieu, 10 Ben Lucas, 9 Cameron Wright, 8 Ben Mowen, 7 Willem du Plessis, 6 Willem Liebenberg, 5 Sitaleki Timani, 4 Tom Donnelly, 3 Patric Cilliers, 2 Mickael Ivaldi, 1 Bees Roux. 
Subs: 16 Thomas Sauveterre, 17 Oleg Ishchenko, 18 Julien Delannoy, 19 Kelian Galletier, 20 Ilian Perraux, 21 Anthony Tuitavake, 22 Jesse Mogg, 23 Jacobus Adriaanse.

With the weather set to be wet again on Thursday, we could be in for another scrap. The result will depend on partially on what sort of team Montpellier put out, but I think it will mostly depend on which Quins side turns up. If it is the side that played in the first three games, Quins should win reasonably comfortably, but if it the side that played against Sale it will be a long evening. I am optimistic that Quins will want to prove they are better than they showed last week and that they are one of the teams to beat this year in this competition. This should mean Quins will win and win well. 

My prediction; Quins 32 Montpellier 19 

LIVE ON SKY SPORTS 

Referee Ian Davies (Wales) 
Touch Judge 1 Simon Rees (Wales) 
Touch Judge 2 Stuart Kibble (Wales) 
Fourth Official Simon McConnell (England) 
TMO Gareth Simmonds (Wales)

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Montpellier Home
Discussion started by ComeAllWithin.co.uk , 10/11/2015 22:03
ComeAllWithin.co.uk
10/11/2015 22:03
What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
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InsertQuinsPunHere
11/11/2015 09:15
Thanks Q4L, I think your scoreline is a little high for a night time game in the cold and wet... I'd go for more like 22-15 to Quins naturally!

Closer & Closer
11/11/2015 09:33
Thursday night ridiculous.... scheduling for TV.....can't go on a "school night"

Wyddy
11/11/2015 09:47
I'm equally interested to see the side Conor picks tonight. The side against Sale really had the impression that we were resting players for Europe - which I just can't understand!

Good write up matey.

Almost quin
11/11/2015 09:59
I think it was more down to injuries Slian had been unwell all week and Horwell had picked up an injury had no problem with resting Jones. At the end of the day Europe is our best chance of silverware so not at all surprised if we take it seriously

gregory p
11/11/2015 10:51
That's a good summary. Montpellier's squad looks like it's been recruited by a raid on the Wimbledon branch of Walkabout. No wonder the French were so poor at the World Cup.

InsertQuinsPunHere
13/11/2015 09:40
Quote:
InsertQuinsPunHere
Thanks Q4L, I think your scoreline is a little high for a night time game in the cold and wet... I'd go for more like 22-15 to Quins naturally!

Well, I bow to your superior prediction skills!

Any tips for the next few fixtures?!

Quins4life
13/11/2015 14:20
Quote:
InsertQuinsPunHere
Quote:
InsertQuinsPunHere
Thanks Q4L, I think your scoreline is a little high for a night time game in the cold and wet... I'd go for more like 22-15 to Quins naturally!

Well, I bow to your superior prediction skills!

Any tips for the next few fixtures?!

Well thank you... I was a bit worried after the first 25 minutes but Im glad I was proved right. Standard French mentality away from home became clear once we got back into the game.

Think my prediction was more out of hope than expectation but I believed the lads would bounce back and want to perform better. Should beat cardiff if we perform reasonably well which should then in turn qualify us unless there is a complete collapse

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