By all accounts this should have been a humdinger of a game with both sides having suffered bad losses and desperate to set the tone for the final flurry of this season’s fixtures.

This was also to be my first match report; gulp. So armed with a pad and pen I arrived at the Stoop and took my seat high up in the south stand – an excellent vantage point I though. The first thing that struck me was how quiet the travelling support was. This was only my second away game (the first being up at Kingston Park on the last day of the 04/05 season) and so I was used to the excellent atmosphere created at the MadStad. The Stoop by comparison, from where I was sitting appeared to drown out any sort of Irish support. So much for the Prawn Sandwich Brigade!

The next slight concern of mine; a*se, my pen didn’t work. So notes were taken jotted down into my phone, most of which now prove fairly unintelligible. So here goes, with an attempt to fill people in one what they may have missed.

We were turned over early conceding a penalty which was comfortably slotted by Mehrtens; not the best of starts but still, twas early doors and plenty of time to gather a head of steam I thought. Sure enough after the restart we won a well worked penalty translated to the score board (oh yes, Quins now have not one but two functioning score boards!) by Bazza. Back to an even keel and an chance to stamp some authority on the game. Quins didn’t seem to be in gear properly and an ambitious attempt to find Strettle of the restart saw the ball go straight into touch. Irish won a penalty from the resulting scrum back with was hammered towards the far touch line. As per the form book the Irish lineout dominated and forced yet another penalty from the good catch and drive. Barry sent the kick wide however. So still Even Stevens 3-3.

From the counter attack things started to go wrong for the men in green (well actually we were wearing our very flashy white kit). A poor clearance by Flutes playing at full back forced Topsy to have to chase back towards our line to fall on Quins return kick. The chasers were up on him quick and he was forced to hold on the ball. Another three pointer for Mehrtens. 6-3 Quins and Irish were beginning to look a little bereft of ideas.

From here on Quins began to dominate the contact area and even Sheila took a walloping into touch. This dominance began to translate into possession and territory. Tagi was forced to make an excellent try saver but the pressure began to tell. The Irish defence was valiant but Quins found their way over for the opening try of the game. Mehrtens scored the simple conversion. 13-3 to the Multi-Coloured ones.

What happened next was truly shocking. Straight from the (very poor) restart Quins were back on the attack, slicing through the thin Green line with ease to dot down more or less immediately. Again Mehrtens took the extras: 20-3.
Finally, Irish showed some ambitious to send Tagi over. He carved his way through at least 4 tackles to score the visitor’s first try and reinstall a little hope to your author. Barry added on another 2 points taking us into half time 20-10 for the worse. Still, there was 40 minutes ahead and you know the old saying about crucial scores at crucial times. It was all still there to play with.

For the second half I stopped taking notes, so dreary and dull did the game become. Players like Dodge tried to spark things but all that happened was we watch Irish players run across the pitch, changing the direction of the ball and never really looking like they were going to do anything hugely productive with it. It was edge of the seats stuff and not in the good way of last season where our fluid handling produced many a try. This was nerve wracking because it seemed we dropped one in five passes.

There’s not much else to say of any note in the second half aside from Quins clinching the bonus point having blow Irish away. Roche did add another 5 points to the score board but it was too little far, far too late. We had been out played big time. We didn’t look hungry to win, it looked as though Sarries has knocked the stuffing out of us and the shops were all out of sage and onion to fill us back up again. The last time I watch Irish play was the Paddy’s Day Game; what a performance that was, what has happened? I know people will point to Wasps being weakened for that game but, to use a slightly over applied phrase look at performance. Three weeks ago the team had desire, ideas and direction. Yesterday we had none of it. Is that down to the missing heads; Catt, Geraghty and Delon? I’ll leave you to decide with the parting thought the Quins vs Irish should be more than enough to get the players to work.

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