In party mode

This was always going to be a tense game, two teams struggling against relegation, London Irish having previously had two very bad games and Quins without an away win in the ZP for two years.

In truth we did not start too badly, for the first fifteen minutes or so we were mostly camped in the Quins half but the Quins defence largley held firm and our only reward was three points from Barrys boot on eight minutes. Something was bothering me even then. We frankly should have scored more from this posession.

After our early pressure the traffic turned in Quins favour. It was however a poor game, lots of mistakes particularly turnover ball on both sides. Quins were awarded a fairly straightforward penalty that Paul Burke missed. Both back lines but more so ours, seemed to have a gameplan that consisted of kicking long balls straight into the arms of an opponent.

On 28 minutes Burke put in a huge kick to a few meters from our line. We won this lineout but Barrys attempt to clear was charged down within our goal area giving Quins a 5 metre scrum. From this scrum the ball was passed to Will Greenwood who danced round a couple of tackles before placing the ball under the posts. Burke duly converted this.

For the remainder of the first half it was all Quins pressure. What baffled me somewhat is that they were awarded a couple of kickable penalties and went for the corner rather than the points. Our line held and we went in at half time 3 to 7 down, still some chance to salvage the game.

The second half was to put it kindly, scrappy. Five minutes into it we were awarded a verk kickable penalty just to the side of the posts about 30m out, Barry missed this. I Have to say that at this stage my heart sank. We had not really looked like breaking the Quins line at any stage prior to this. If we could not kick points we were in doo doo, so it turned out to be.

The one passage of play that appeared to give us any hope was when from a scrum deep in our own half the ball was passed to Sackey who looked to be through. He was well tackled by Burke about half way between the Quins 22 and 10m lines and was penalised for holding on. This appeared to be questionable as indeed were many of Mr Leyshons decisions (Against both sides). One assumes Paul vented his frustration with the ref as we were promptly marched back another 10.

Quins, Burke having been replaced by Williams, converted two more penalties in the 60th and 75th minutes leaving us 3 to 13 down and struggling for even a bonus point. This however did seem to be on the cards when we were awarded a penalty in the 78th minute which Tofty converted.

Alas it was not to be. Continued Quins pressure saw us continually offending. With the last kick of the game Williams converted another penalty, final score LI 6 16 Quins. Not a pretty game but Quins were by far the better team on the day and fully deserved the victory.

There are two things that particularly strike me compared to last season. One is our apparent inability to make the hard yards. Last season we seemes to be able to make a few yards, set up a ruck, make a few more, etc etc WITHOUT LOSING THE BALL. In the games I have seen this season any semi decent passage of play seems to have ended with a knock forward or the ball coming out of a ruck on the wrong side. The other thing that struck me is that we no longer seem to be capable of setting a play up such that the ball is passed to someone coming at speed, hence our inability to break lines.

We are now in deep trouble, the team appear to be bereft of ideas or inspiration. Confidence seems to be very low. If we cannot win on St. Patricks weekend, in front of a huge crowd, against a fellow struggler with an awful away record, when can we? Someone, somehow, needs to turn things round and quickly or we will end up in National Division One next year.

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