The first three minutes were enough to give warning of what was to come as from the kick-off Quins dropped the ball and knocked-on to concede a scrum on their twenty-two. At the scrum they gave away a penalty and that resulted in a five-metre line-out for the home team. Quick ball off the top saw the ball moved swiftly left from the scrum-half to the fly-half and then to the inside centre, Lozides, who crossed under the posts. Taylor added the simple conversion and from then on Quins were playing catch up.

But errors were piled on errors as Quins lost two line-outs in quick succession and although they won the third, a poor pass was knocked-on to give possession away again. Almost immediately an attempted to be quickly taken twenty-two drop-out was poorly controlled and Saracens continued to press hard so that Quins had to defend stoutly. This they did, but it was almost twenty minutes before play moved out of the Quins’ half of the pitch.

It is fair to say that errors were rife on both sides, as both exhibited signs of being very short of match practice. However, the errors committed by Harlequins seemed the more glaring. Gradually they began to exert some attacking pressure and when, almost on the half-hour, the flanker Preocanin was shown a yellow card Quins were able to increase their attacks.

But the lack of a goal kicker was also a problem causing a number of point scoring opportunities to be declined and allowing Saracens to offend almost with impunity. They did so frequently and mostly without penalty, going offside at rucks and scrums and slowing ball down illegally. But now Quins were beginning to put real attacking pressure on the Saracens’ line and first Simon Keogh and then Tom Guest almost crossed the line before Chris Hala’ufia forced his way over for the try. Duffy’s conversion attempt curled wide. 7 – 5 after thirty-seven minutes.

But it was only a minute or two before Saracens struck again. Back to full strength, forward pressure gained good ground and though Quins cleared the ball to touch, their opponents were able from the line-out to create space and an overlap for the winger, Cato to cross in the left corner. Taylor converted and at half-time Saracens led 14 -5.

Changes to the front row at half-time saw the welcome appearance of Hayter and Ceri Jones, both back from injury. Quins came out for the second half showing clear determination to improve. To some extent they succeeded but it was not enough to prevent their opponents scoring again after some ten minutes as Cato found space on the left. The conversion was missed to leave the score at 19 – 5.

Quins increased their efforts. A cross kick from Williams for Charlie Amesbury saw the latter offside and numerous passes to him in the game were ruled forward or were so poor as to leave him no chance. There were good runs by Duffy and Tom Guest but unforced errors frustrated their success. Another yellow card as the Saracens full-back, Richard Haughton was sent to the sin-bin for coming in at the side of a ruck. Quins did gain ground and were stopped just short of the line. A five-metre scrum in front of the posts saw them move to just a metre short and Luke Sherriff dived over to score. Gavin Duffy added the conversion. The final score was 19 -12 giving Quins a losing bonus point.

Afterwards Collin Osborne was clearly disappointed and frustrated. He acknowledged the poverty of the performance but pointed out that many of the players had played virtually no rugby for several weeks and were very rusty, something which training does not negate. There is no substitute for match play. Frustration, too, was etched on the faces of many of the players as they left the field knowing they had not done themselves justice.

Perhaps the major problem was the lack of a fly-half to control the game. Tom Williams tried hard, but is not a fly-half. With Jarvis having played on Saturday, Mehrtens injured and Jewell away with the England U20 Quins options were limited. A kicking fly-half might have taken advantage of the penalty count to score a few points and keep the opposition honest instead of them knowing there was little danger of any penalty being dealt with other than to touch or tapped.

TEAM:
15. Gavin Duffy. 14. Simon Keogh, 13. Adam Thompstone, 12. Tosh Masson, 11. Charlie Amesbury, 10. Tom Williams, 9. Steve So'oialo, 1. Ricky Nebbett, 2. Jimmy Richards, 3. Mark Lambert, 4. Nicolas Spanghero, 5. Simon Miall,
6. Tom Guest, 7. Luke Sherriff, 8. Chris Hala'Ufia.
Replacements: 16. James Hayter, 17. Alex Rogers, 18. Ceri Jones, 19. Marcus Ripley,
20. Phil Burgess, 21. Kevin Fisher 22. Ian Barnes

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