But while we have won both of our first matches of the season, at Worcester and Bath, Quins have been beaten by London Irish at Twickenham and hammered at home by Northampton. With no new injuries from the Rec, and Phil Dowson’s suspension suspended and possibly going to be quashed, we can look forward in confidence to taking on a side that lost two of their best players in the summer in Pat Sanderson and Paul Burke to Worcester and Munster respectively, whilst the cornerstones of their pack, Jason Leonard and Bill Davison, have retired. However, they still boast skipper Andre Vos, quality backs Ugo Monye and Dafydd James and English internationals in Mike Worsley and Tony Diprose. Certainly we won’t have it easy on Sunday.

Matches between us and Harlequins have often been ones of significance. For instance, nobody who was at the Stoop at the end of 1997/98 to see us become English Champions with a 44-20 victory will ever forget it. The home match earlier in the campaign also saw a record KP crowd of 5,301.

And despite having played the southern side three times in the first twelve seasons of Cup rugby, we have only met twice in the competition in the subsequent 22. However, at Kingston Park in 1996 the 5th round match saw the Newcastle debuts of Rob Andrew and Nick Popplewell, and nobody needs reminding of 24/2/01.

Strangely though, since then we have beaten the Quins only once in eight league and European matches. It was, however, the time to do it - February 1st 2003. We were rock bottom of the league, six points behind Bath, having lost seven straight Premiership matches, and most of them to other relegation contenders like Bath, London Irish (twice), Bristol (twice) and Saracens. For what Duncan Madsen called the biggest match in our history (without doubt), we lined up: J Shaw, L Botham, J Noon, M Mayerhofler, M Stephenson, J Wilkinson ©, J Grindal, I Peel, N Makin, M Hurter, S Grimes, E Taione, A Mower, H Vyvyan. The new West Stand was being opened and before a crowd of 6,109 (and the Sky cameras), victory was the only option left to us with only eight games remaining to secure survival. We achieved it in emphatic style, also securing a bonus point from tries by Grimes, Vyvyan, Noon and Stephenson, Wilkinson adding two penalties and three conversions.  (Falcon1's report of that game is this week's link at the bottom of this preview).

Our full record against Harlequins is:

24/2/79 North Road John Player Cup 2nd round W9-3

8/3/80 The Stoop John Player Cup QF L3-9

24/1/83 The Stoop John Player Cup 3rd round L15-24

2/10/93 Kingston Park Courage League Division 1 L3-22

12/2/94 The Stoop Courage League Division 1 L6-12

10/2/96 Kingston Park Pilkington Cup 5th round L22-44

15/2/98 Kingston Park Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 W43-15

17/5/98 The Stoop Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 W44-20

7/11/98 The Stoop Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 L20-25

11/5/99 Kingston Park Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 W33-23

5/12/99 Kingston Park Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 L15-16

22/1/00 The Stoop Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 W15-12

30/9/00 The Stoop Zurich Premiership W20-18

24/2/01 Twickenham Tetley’s Bitter Cup Final W30-27

6/3/01 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership L22-24

22/4/01 Headingley European Shield Semi-Final L12-17

16/9/01 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership D6-6

16/3/02 The Stoop Zurich Premiership L19-33

5/10/02 The Stoop Zurich Premiership L23-47

1/2/03 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership W32-17

11/10/03 The Stoop Zurich Premiership L11-18

4/1/04 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership L25-29

Total: P22 W8 D1 L13 F428 A461

Home: P10 W4 D1 L5 F210 A199

Away: P12 W4 D0 L8 F218 A262

I certainly feel that at the moment the Falcons could be on the verge of something very big. Two wins so far with a bonus point and totally outplaying both opponents suggest we can look forward to a decent season. However, we are not there yet after only two matches, and any side looking to do anything in the Premiership needs plenty of home wins behind them, and against mid-table sides like Quins we need to be winning at Kingston Park. A win on Sunday and suddenly anything looks possible, even a result at Kingsholm next week!

But first, four points is the bare minimum required on Sunday.  Whilst the Quins team will not be named until Friday, the Falcons line up like this:-

15 Matthew Burke
14 Tom May
13 Jamie Noon
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 Michael Stephenson
10 Jonny Wilkinson (joint captain)
9 Hall Charlton

1 Ian Peel (joint captain)
2 Andy Long
3 Micky Ward
4 Stuart Grimes
5 Craig Hamilton
6 Mike McCarthy
7 Colin Charvis
8 Semo Sititi

16 James Isaacson
17 Matt Thompson
18 Luke Gross
19 Epi Taione
20 James Grindal
21 Dave Walder
22 Joe Shaw

As has been discussed, Munster, Worcester and Bath have seen a new energy to our away support this season. Now we need to transfer that to our home ground and rock the city to its foundations. We need EVERYONE around the stadium to play their part to its fullest and loudest to make KP a frightening place for opposing teams to come.

We haven’t won four league games in a row since London Irish, Bristol, Leeds and Wasps (and then Gloucester after that) in that wonderful autumn of 2001, but now is the time to do it and show the rest of the country we mean business. Falcons to win, possibly with a bonus point.

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